Pirate King's Tailor
by Tactition101
Summary: When I 'died' in a car crash I never expected I'd have the chance to end up in the One Piece world. There's just one problem, all of my memories of the story line are now gone, with only the words Straw Hat Pirates to give me a clue of what I'm supposed to do. Still, at least I got an incredibly useful Devil Fruit out of the deal. Paramecia Version
1. Chapter 1

The Pirate King's Tailor

Summary: When I 'died' in a car crash I never expected I'd have the chance to end up in the One Piece world. There's just one problem, all of my memories of the story line are now gone, with only the words Straw Hat Pirates to give me a clue of what I'm supposed to do. Still, at least I got an incredibly useful Devil Fruit out of the deal.

Chapter 1

Story Start: Our Universe

The area around me was a mess. A blown-out tire from the front of a semi had caused it to careen out of control, taking out five different cars within the first five seconds of the accident and it had only gotten worse from there. I was on the tail end of the first twenty seconds and thanks to my pretty good reflexes had somehow managed to put my little Ford Ranger into a tail spin so that the back end had gotten crumpled and not me. Once my head had stopped ringing, I quickly got out of the cab from the passenger side and scrabbled to the side of the road, glad that I tended to stay in the fast lane whenever I went on freeways and highways simply on principle.

Screeching tires drew my attention as yet another car couldn't stop in time and I saw the mini-van slam into one of the already crumpled wrecks. Seeing the flames that started in both vehicles, I cursed before I rushed back to my truck's still open cab and flipped the back of the passenger seat forward to expose the small fire extinguisher and wonder-bar (mini crowbar) behind the seat. Grabbing both, I quickly rushed over and pulled the pin on the extinguisher, dousing the flames in its foam. Imminent explosions diverted, I helped the passengers get out of the cars only to discover that the driver of the car the mini-van had hit had his leg pinned under twisted metal. Thanking my foresight to grab the wonder-bar, I began prying the metal away from his leg, adrenalin aiding my already not so unimpressive strength and after about thirty seconds, the driver was just able to get his leg out. I had just enough time to wince at the mangled look of his ankle before I threw his left arm over my shoulder and began making my way back to the side of the road.

We were just beginning to pass the hood of my truck when yet again I heard tires screeching and I saw another car squealing as it came towards us too fast to stop. Tossing the driver the last few feet to the side of the road, I made to jump as well only to get hit by the car in the area of the driver side headlight, the force of the impact pinning me into the hood of my truck and causing my head to slam into the side of my truck directly above the wheel well and darkness filled my vision.

Scene Change: A Higher Plane

Just as fast as blackness took over my vision, whiteness replaced it and I blinked in surprise as I looked around. I was currently floating in a sea of white, wisps of steam like streamers undulating around me giving the appearance that I was underwater. There was a sudden sound of flapping wings behind me and I somehow spun around and saw a massive serpent with dozens of pairs of wings rapidly shooting through the whiteness towards me. My eyes widened and just as my arms instinctively went up to futilely ward the massive creature off it transformed into a black cloaked figure while at the same time coming to a dead stop five feet in front of me causing me to blink in stunned surprise.

The figure cackled and said in a man's voice "Oh man, I apologize for that but you should have seen the look on your face!"

I blinked at him before I scowled as I said "Let me guess, you're a B.R.O.B."

The figure tilted its hooded head (Of which all details were hidden in blackness) and said "Yes and no. I am a Random Omnipotent Being, but I'm currently more Bored than feeling like being a Bastard."

"Forgive me if I don't find that much of a comfort." I said crossing my arms. Hey, I was either currently in a coma or already dead, what did I care about watching what I said to this guy?

"You're not actually dead you know." The figure said, obviously having read my mind. At my raised eyebrow, he continued "Like I said, I've been feeling bored and so I was watching that not so little fender bender you were in. I saw what you did and I thought to myself 'Buddy, that guy looks like he could be somewhat entertaining in the action genre.' So I decided to bring you here and give you an offer that I seriously doubt you'll refuse."

"And that offer would be?" I asked, a little bit of caution now entering my tone of voice as I remembered the deals other B.R.O.B.s have made before.

"On top of holding off you're semi untimely demise for a while yet, I'll drop you off in another world where you can have a grand old time playing the part of an action hero. I'm thinking a One Piece world so I'm also willing to give you a Devil Fruit right out the gate."

"Sounds interesting, but what's the catch?" I asked warily.

Somehow, a disturbingly demented grin was now visible in the darkness of the figure's hood as he said "I'll be taking all of your memories of the story line as payment. You'll still have basic world knowledge, but Character Background Info and Future Knowledge will be completely erased."

I paled at the price given. The One Piece world was absolutely insane, and every single story I've ever read where some poor shmuck gets kicked into it only had said poor bastard (or bitch) surviving due to future knowledge. Well, there was that one poor gender bent sod in SI Seeking Straw Hat but even xe had their knowledge of the story to give them a goal to work towards. No memory of the story could lead me getting into some very deep diving pools of cow excrement if I said the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Taking a much-needed swallow, I said "I don't suppose you would be willing to allow me to modify the deal a little would you?"

The grin remained in place as the figure said "I'm open to a little bit of compromise. Like I said, the first B is currently Bored, not Bastard."

"Alright, three things: First, I'd like to be dropped into the East Blue on an island where Luffy and the others WILL find me. Second, I'd like to remember the name Straw Hat Pirates so that way I know who to go with. And Third and most importantly, if you're dropping me off on an uninhabited island, then _please_ in the name of all that is both holy and not give me a proper knife and a pallet full of duck tape!"

I got the sense the figure suddenly blinked before it threw its head back and _HOWLED_ with laughter, the surrounding mists seeming to shake like an earthquake was going on from the action. After a solid minute, the figure got itself under control and said "Ahh, I needed that." Grin returning, he said "I take it you're a Mythbuster fan."

"Got all twenty of the current seasons on my phone, along with the Search season." I said, grinning a little despite myself.

The figure chuckled again and said "Tell you what kid, not only well I grant your requests, but due to giving me a much needed laugh I'll even make it so that you're phone has infinite power and Wi-Fi so that you can keep up to date with your Mythbusting. You'll of course have to pay for it still but I'm sure you'll be rolling in dough soon enough."

"Thanks." I said stunned at the generosity of the figure before me. Now I just had to make sure no Transponder Snails decided to make the phone a snack and I wouldn't have to worry about boredom while I waited for the Straw Hats when I wasn't practicing with my new Devil Fruit.

Seeming to have read my mind again, the figure said "Oh yes, I should probably tell you which fruit you'll be getting shouldn't I?" Three fruits with swirly patterns on them appeared in between us, a peach, an apple, and a clementine orange. Giving a grandiose gesture, the figure said "Think of this as choosing your Pokemon Starter, the Fruit you choose will be with you at the start of your new journey and stick with you until the very end. We have here one of each Devil Fruit type: the Lemur Zoan, the Air Logia, and the Cloth Paramecia. Choose wisely young Trainer."

I ignored my first impulse of grabbing the Logia. Intangibility would be nice but that would only last until we reached the New World where at least half of the competition could hit me thanks to Haki. And while the thought of becoming a super powered Wind God of Death version of Naruto was appealing, if I went full Air, who knows how hard it would be for me to return back to a human form. So while the Logia had me drooling, it was Out.

The next choice I thought about was the Zoan. Unbelievably durable, and rapid recovery, it would be a good choice for someone who wasn't used to combat. And a lemur was one of the best jumpers of the animal kingdom making it good for hit and runs, and that tail would probably useful too. And of course we couldn't disregard the enhanced senses. But for all of that, the Zoan only had three forms (Unless I could convince Chopper to lend me some rumble balls and even those had drawbacks), and lemurs weren't exactly at the top of the food chain so little obvious combat abilities. So while it would have been cool being able to parkour like a boss, it was Out.

That left the Paramecia. Cloth didn't seem all that great combat wise, but that was just at first glance. Almost EVERYONE had some form of clothing on them and Your Summon Is Pink had already given me an idea of what I could do with it. Always having a weapon on me that everyone would ignore until I got really infamous would _definitely_ come in handy, and if I could learn how to manipulate the clothes _others_ were wearing? Yeah, excuse me as I let out a Bond Villain worthy cackle of malice. And that was just what I could use it for offensively. The saying of Devil Fruits are only as good as the user's imagination meant that I had a LOT of ideas about what I could do with that fruit if I could use it to make some of the weird and wonderful things I've seen and read about people wearing and using. Edge, Cloth Fruit.

Shaking myself out of my Deadliest Warrior mindset, I looked up from the fruits and said "I chose the Cloth Paramecia."

That demented grin was back as the figure said "Excellent choice." The peach and apple both faded away leaving the clementine orange. Said fruit floated into my right jacket pocket and he continued "Right then, time for you to head out mate, do try not to die in your first fight, it'd be rather anticlimactic going to all this trouble just for you to kick the bucket on the first level."

"No promises." I half muttered earning an amused "Ha!" before my world suddenly turned completely black like someone had turned off a massive light. The last thing I heard before I faded into oblivion was "Good luck mate, you're going to need it."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Quick Author's Note: This was started weeks before it's slotted time when the winner of the poll became clear in order to get through the 'training montage' faster. Please do NOT expect such lengths again since this will be an episode-based story.

Story Start: East Blue

As I was getting depressingly used to, as soon as the darkness came it left, leaving me staggering a little from the startling shift of scenery. That staggering led to me losing my balance completely and I fell onto the ground with an 'Oomph!' of expelled air. It took me a moment to get my senses back in order but when they did, the first thing I noticed was that I was currently sitting haphazardly on sand. Getting back onto my feet, I looked around and saw nothing but ocean in front of me, a stretch of beach that seemed to bend inwards about a mile out to the left, stereotypical island forest behind me and a beach that ended at the bottom of a set of two-hundred-foot-high cliffs on the right. Also to my right about ten feet away in stark contrast with the natural scene was a five foot tall pallet of duck tape wrapped in Seram wrap, the same kind of knife Special Agent Gibbs from NCIS uses sitting on top keeping a sealed letter envelope from flying away in the strong breeze. Seeing the not _quite_ expected sight, I let out a sigh of relief.

The next sense I took closer notice of was my hearing. The pounding of waves hitting the shore was obvious, as was the howling wind that swept past, occasionally the stronger gusts picking up minute bits of sand in mini tornados. From behind were the sounds of local birds calling and if I strained my hearing then I could just barely pick up the movement of land bound animals moving through the undergrowth.

Scent was next, and while I would be the first to acknowledge that my sense of smell was usually rather terrible, I'd have had to have had no nose whatsoever to not smell the scent of the ocean in front of me or sheer scent of _wild_ in the forests behind me. There wasn't a single _hint_ of any of the industrialization that I had learned to ignore over the decades of living in human habituated locations. Honestly, it was a little startling to not even catch a trace of car exhaust, human scent coverers, or even bug spray or sunscreen.

Taking a minute to absorb all that, I then walked over to the pallet of tape and picked up the knife and letter. The envelope had no writing on it and I frowned at that fact before flicking open the knife and opened the top. Pulling it out I read:

Welcome to East Blue Mate: As promised, here's your knife and pallet of tape, I'm sure you'll put both to good use. Now, I know I told you that you'd probably do great as an action figure but I'm feeling a bit like watching some Man Vs Wild. (I felt the beginnings of unease fill me at those words.) You are also going to need time to properly learn how to use your Devil Fruit on a location that _doesn't_ have salt water less than twenty feet away from you on all sides. Therefore, I've inserted you at a point where it will be six months before the Straw Hats run into you. (I swear every drop of blood shot from my head down to my toes at that.) Before you panic though, know that you do have an out if it gets too much for you. Simply carve Time Skip into a tree with that knife and I will 'fast forward' you to the day before the Straw Hat Pirates show up. However, I'm not a needlessly cruel being so on top of the chance to train I'm going to give you an incentive to go the whole half year: If you manage to go three months then I'll give you back your 3DS XL with the same modifications as your iPhone. (I blinked three times at that before I got a determined look in my eyes. Besides said phone that 3DS XL was my ONLY gaming system.) Manage to go the full six months and I'll give you an actual Invisibility Cloak from the Harry Potter franchise. (THAT had my eyes going temporarily bug eyed before metaphorically alighting with flames of determination. A Cloth-Cloth man with access to an INVISIBILITY CLOAK?! I could make entire armies disappear from sight if I got good enough!) One more thing, as a final gift/chance for you NOT to die an ignoble death, I've hidden a bullet proof vest on this island that you will have to find. I will say that it is neither buried or in water but beyond that you're on your own, happy hunting, and try not to make the upcoming weeks too boring, won't yah?

There was no signature at the bottom, not that I expected one. I folded it up and put it back into the envelope. Putting it back on top of the pallet and absentmindedly putting the knife on top of it in order to keep it from blowing away, my eyes flicked from side to side as my mind drove down a metaphorical highway at about a hundred miles per hour. The 3DS and Invisibility Cloak meant that I was going to do my damn hardest to make it through the six months, no question about that at all. The problem was how to properly use my large but still finite supply of duck tape to make it work.

Thanks to the Mythbusters duck tape island special, I had a pretty rough draft of what to do. I could skip making the SOS sign since I actually KNEW someone would find me even if it would be half a year until then. Of course, given that this was a world where the primary method of travel was by sea I couldn't discount others possibly showing up between then and now. Hm, would have to be sure to look for good places to hide in that case, wouldn't do for some well meaning Samaritan Marine to drag me from the island and thus make me miss my meeting with the Straw Hats. I shook my head and shelved that thought for later and instead got back to more immediately important things. I needed food and water, the latter more than the former. And while I would have to wait to explore before I knew what I had to work with food wise, (Thank God I was a boy scout until I turned sixteen!) I could make a start on the water portion now. Besides, I needed to get the duck tape out of the sun soon or it could all get ruined.

It was at that point that I finally realized I still had on my capable of keeping me warm in below freezing temperatures Carheart jacket and it was rather WARM outside. Quickly shedding it, I moved the devil fruit from the outside pocket to the inside pocket (I was NOT going to eat that thing until I had AT LEAST a quart of water to drown out the taste, YUK!) and put it on top of the stack of tape before I began carefully unwrapping the tape. Once the wrapping was off (and not a single tear to boot!) I brought the long strand of clear plastic and a couple rolls of tape over to the nearby forest where I could use some of the trees as a quick workstation. A quick estimate of length done by walking along the strand and then a few quick calculations done on the Calculator app of my phone had me quickly making a duck tape net that would get the most out of the Seram Wrap.

Top of my future Solar Still done, I made a nice big Gallon sized bucket out of duck tape, complete with carrying handles, and then went back towards the water. I made sure I knew where the waves stopped and then went back another twelve feet before I started digging. Once I reached a depth where there was water in the bottom I put my collection bucket in the middle before putting the wrap cover on top, being sure to have it dip rather than be taut, something helped by the small bit of sand I put in the middle, and used a couple of collected rocks and broken sticks to keep it in place, through tabs of tape I had thoughtfully added as an afterthought rather than the valuable plastic.

Long term water acquisition taken care of, (two hours of operation wouldn't even give me a full cup, but the solar still required no further input from me to work making it good for long term use) I began moving all of the tape AND the wooden pallet underneath to underneath the nearby trees. Unfortunately, despite my thoughts that my dubious benefactor may have been childish enough to hide the Bullet Proof Vest under the pallet that I would have probably not found until about five months in if I hadn't remembered all of the times I found ruined tape in the garage, the Vest was not in fact that easy to find. I didn't dwell on that long though, instead moving onto rope, wrapping the beginning of a roll of tape around the thinnest tree I could find before I began slowly but steadily twisting it as I unrolled the rest of the twenty five feet roll. I did a second roll then stuck the still attached rolls into a stick before twisting the strands into a semi proper strand of rope. A little more tape wrapped around both ends and I had a tool that I could use both for exploration and pulling anything I needed.

With rope made, I used three more rolls of tape to make even more tightly wrapped strands of 'twine' that I would use to seed the island with snares as I went searching for fresh water. At least one of them should be able to net me some small critter to eat later. After that, I made three six litter canteens out of tape, watching the part of the Duck Tape Island episode where Adam did the same on my phone to double check that I did it properly.

With those tools made, I switched gears and made a quick shelter out of a large sheet of duck tape that I hung from the middle and secured the corners with strips of tape to tree trunks to protect me both from wind and rain and put a hammock directly underneath to keep me off the ground and hopefully the majority if not entirety of this island's bug population. I had even made a sleeve in the tent roof to keep the R.O.B.'s letter in. As a final touch, I made a tarp to put on the ground underneath so that way I could properly sit and put on my shoes.

Roughly five hours after my arrival onto the island and after all of the immediate preparations for my long stay that I could think of were made, I put my jacket back on, left unzipped of course, stuck my knife in its right pocket, gathered my three water canteens, my snare rope and 'exploration' rope, then grabbed ten more rolls of tape which I made a sling to hang off of and began walking along the forest line towards the cliffs I had seen before, leaving quarter width rings of tape around trees every thousand feet or so as trail markers.

It would be four hours past sunset before I came back to my little camp, the flashlight on my phone guiding me, three canteens filled with fresh water, and a two foot by six inch basket full of nuts and berries I had used my former Boy Scout experience to tentatively identify as safe to eat slung over my shoulder by a long strap that let it hang down like a computer bag would. Unfortunately, none of my snares had caught anything when I checked on them on the way back but that was alright since I was too tired to make a fire and wait for any meat to cook right now. Securing the food in a way that I was pretty sure would keep out the animals, I checked to make sure my Solar Still hadn't been torn at all and transferred the meager amount it had collected into another water container, this one with no less than five layers of tape making a five gallon drum which was secured to the thickest tree I could find. I also poured two of the canteens into it leaving the other one full for tomorrow's exploring expedition.

Long term water containment secured, and now feeling thoroughly exhausted from the long day, I made one last check of the area before I turned off my light, took off my shoes, and allowed myself to slump into my hammock bed with a tired groan of relief and used my jacket as a blanket. Making a note to myself to make some actual bedsheets tomorrow, I drifted off with fanciful thoughts of making an ultra-light out of duck tape and bamboo and using it to survey the island from the air. (It was a nice thought, even if I knew it wouldn't work.)

The next morning, I woke up and looked around in confusion for a moment before I remembered my current circumstances. I gave a jaw cracking yawn and carefully got out of my hammock before I did a quick bit of stretching that had my joints pleasurably popping. A little bit of water poured from the still full canteen to the face finished waking me up and I quickly checked to make sure no animal had made off with my food stash while I slept. The little claw marks at the top of the tape lid showed that something HAD tried but I smirked when it became obvious that four layers of tape had been enough to keep whatever it was out. Peeling off the sealing strip between lid and basket, I grabbed a few berries from their side of the basket (There was even a dividing wall of tape to keep them separate) and munched on them before I chose a couple of nuts to finish my breakfast. Resealing the basket, I took a few swallows of water before I turned back towards my bed and frowned.

On that bed and still in my jacket pocket was a fruit that could potentially make my stay here a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately, it also meant that I would never be able to swim again, something which I rather liked being able to do. Of course, if I could manage to make a completely water tight swimsuit or even a frog suit that would be another matter but who knew how long that could get right in making, especially IF I couldn't do everything I was hoping the fruit would allow me to do. But then again, I couldn't exactly not eat the Fruit since as the marks on my nut and berry basket showed there were wild animals around that could take a shot at it. The thought of some critter getting amazing powers that they'd probably never even realize they had left a rather sour taste in my mouth. The only reason why whatever animal had been here hadn't gone for it was because it had been right next to me as I slept. Which meant that what I had to do was clear.

Giving a deep sigh, I said "OH, _man_ , this is going to SUUUUCK!" I gave an anticipatory full body shiver at the horror I was about to experience before I stripped naked. There was no one around to see and the Fruit was one that dealt with cloth after all so I didn't want to accidently strangle myself or do other irreversible things with my clothes until I knew I had at least semi decent control over it. I then grabbed a handful of berries and put them by the water canteen before I took out the cursed Clementine Orange and morosely studied the spirals as I said "At least it's small enough to fit in my mouth all at once." Giving another shudder, I let out a small whimper before I closed my eyes and stuffed the whole thing into my mouth, peel and all.

My eyes immediately shot open at the taste that was indescribable beyond simply _**NASTY!**_ I struggled to chew twice before I forced it down with a quick gulp of water before I grabbed the berries and rubbed them against my tongue for a solid minute trying to get the taste out before I desperately grabbed the canteen and quickly took a deep pull that I gargled for a solid minute. Spitting it out as far from me as I could, I took ten deep pulls from the canteen before I finally stopped drinking and panted for air.

Panting, I said "Oh sweet Primus and Unicron, that was absolutely RANK!" Giving another full body shudder at the remembered taste, I looked at my smeared hand and busied myself with washing it off in order to take my mind off of the ordeal I had just endured. Once that was done, I looked at my clothes then my bare skin and said "Well, guess I should see what I just signed up for.

(Time Skip)

A month later I was sitting on top of the cliffs near base camp trying to meditate. A week of rigorous testing had shown that 1.) I needed to be physically touching cloth to manipulate it but 2.) I could shoot off single strands of cloth like but not actually cloth materials from my fingers and toes like a warped version of Spiderman to latch onto far off cloths and manipulate them from a distance, though the strands were incredibly weak, easily breaking. 3.) Said strands could be easily augmented with extended cloth on my body making them much more durable which lead to 4.) I could add or subtract from a cloth's mass turning a simple shirt into something bigger than a galleon's sail or smaller than a glasses cleaning cloth. (Those were just how far I tested, who knew just HOW large or small I could get? 5.) I was capable of changing the properties of a cloth such as its coloration and even a bit of its makeup, if only into something I was already familiar with. (More training needed to change cloth into more fantasy or sci-fi related material?) 6.) It was possible for me to create cloth rope strong enough to hold my weight and tie its end around something without touching said end, as shown by how I could now swing through the tree tops like Tarzan using them, AND retract said ropes as I moved.

That knowledge was pretty damn good for a start and the next week had been spent on training speed. I got the cloth I was manipulating to be as fast as a viper but making more or less of it was still a work in progress. After two weeks though I temporarily put my new abilities aside to instead work on something that was going to be much more time intensive: Trying to train Haki.

More specifically, I was trying to train Observation Haki. Having Armament Haki imbuing cloth weaponry would be Grade A badass but if someone managed to hit me either behind or with a lucky shot, GAME OVER. So, Observation first, then Armament. So far though, I had Zip, Nadda, Diddly Divided By Squat, a Hole Riddled Bucket. I blamed the fact that I couldn't stop _twitching_ every once in a while breaking my concentration. As a particularly bad full body twitch went through me I opened my eyes with a deep sigh.

Only for them to widen as I saw a two mast ship with black dots near the top coming towards the island, roughly five miles out. Briefly thanking my lucky stars that not only was I NOT in the habit of making a fire unless absolutely needed, but that I tended to also keep every cloth I made colors that blended into the surrounding area, I quickly shot over to an anchored cloth zipline from the top of the cliff to the top of a tree right next to my cloth covered sleeping area, plenty of slack to make it so that I wouldn't reach the end at a fast speed and low enough that I could drop down without injury. There was even a big pile of folded cloth to serve as a landing softener underneath.

Quickly leaping off the cliff and making a cloth sling over the rope to guide my descent, something leagues more daring than my first highly tentative try at the zip line, I quickly rode down the line before releasing it near the end and landed in a crouch. Hopping off of it, I quickly slammed my hands into the ground and a cloth that was colored exactly like the forest came up from where it had been hidden and over the camp damn near perfectly camouflaging it in a way where you had to pretty much walk into the cloth to know that there was something there that shouldn't. A buried cloth dragged over the Solar Still sand and all also hid it and I used a cloth grapple hook to shoot up into a tree, the zip line quickly untying and shrinking to a small six inch strand of cloth that I yanked over and pocketed.

Any further action was going to have to wait until I could properly observe the arriving ship's crew. Black Pirate flags may mean they were coming peacefully, it was actually red that meant no quarter while white meant surrender, something that almost 'everyone' seemed to have gotten mixed up, but that could have been a trick to make anyone who saw the flag lower their guard. Speaking of the flag, when it got close enough I saw that the Jolly Roger had two saxophones on either side of the cross bones of all things. And not little alto saxes either, as a former player of said alto instrument I recognized those things as the giant great granddaddy of the sax family, Contrabass, AKA the Saxophone taller than its player at six feet four inches.

Blinking several times at the unusual Jolly Roger decoration, I took out my phone and zoomed its camera so that way I could get an early look at the crew. I may have been new to this world but even I knew that they wouldn't have such a monster of an instrument as part of their Jolly Roger without a damn good reason.

And they definitely had said reason, there were several different instrument cases strung across the deck of the ship, some right by the people on said deck, most of them underneath the rope ladders leading up to the deck, a quick bit of counting showed that the number of instruments matched the number of people up in the rope works. It seemed that the modern day equivalent of the Rumbar Pirates had shown up. (And why would I specifically know what a Pirate crew that sailed over fifty years ago was famous for? Clearly, I had learned about them somehow but that was before even ROGER's time so it couldn't have anything to do with the story line could it?)

Still, just because they were obviously music lovers did NOT mean that they weren't also a bunch of bloodthirsty cutthroat marauding psychopaths. So as the ship pulled in closer I did my best to try to determine if they'd try to kill me at first sight only for my jaw to drop as a man in a tricorn hat who was easily eleven feet tall came out of what I suspected was the captain's cabin and made his way over to the helm. It was one thing to intellectually know that the height charts of this place were out of whack compared to Earth's but seeing it the first time was still a shock. And on another note, I now knew why there was such a large saxophone on their Jolly Roger, the guy was so tall that the Contrabass seemingly clamped to his back looked more like a Baritone sax.

Apprehension filled what little remaining space I had had in my chest when I saw him and how he kept that instrument on his back like some swordsmen wore their swords and no _obvious_ weapons on him. If that guy could actually use that thing as a weapon then I was in _trouble_. Giving a nervous swallow as the ship's anchor was dropped and long boats were dropped for landing parties, I sent out threads to connect with all of the cloths that I had buried around the beach over the last couple weeks in preparation for when I had hostile company.

The boarding parties quickly reached shore about five hundred feet from my camp and pulled their landing craft far enough out of the water that they wouldn't be washed back into the ocean but not so far that they weren't easily pushed back in either. It made me think that they were here for supply runs and would likely go back to the ship and back to land multiple times. I didn't have much time for guessing their future actions though because less than a minute after everyone was out, one of the crew members who had traveled along the beach called out "Captain! Someone's been here recently!"

Ice filled my veins as the Captain called back "How can you tell?"

"There are tracks here that are too fresh, couldn't be more than a day old!" The sailor called gesturing at said tracks.

"Scrap!" I cursed under my breath as the rest of the crew including the captain came to see what the sailor was talking about. In my panic, I had completely forgotten about dragging a cloth over the beach to if not eliminate tracks then at least smooth them out in order to make them seem older. Of all the idiotic and rookie mistakes to make! Already some of the crew were pulling out pistols and drawing swords. I had no choice, I had to act NOW!

Giving a large jerk on one of my strands a massive thousand foot by thousand foot cloth made out of the same material as my Carheart jacket erupted out of the sand in front of the crew and up in the air before it began falling like a domino over them. Several of the crew let out panicked shouts as it began falling but I saw the captain quickly pull his Saxophone off his back and let out a massive blast of air through it, the loud note it made making my ears ring forcing me to clap my hands over them even as I stared in wide eyed horror as the massive sheet was blasted away by the sound and thrown out over the forest to land somewhere that was probably at _least_ half a mile away.

"Oh, damn." I breathed to myself as ALL of the crew drew weapons and began looking for their attacker. Moving further back into the tree to avoid being seen, I listened as several of the crew called out for me to show myself, some of them adding insults along the lines of me being a coward and weak for good measure. A minute though, I got a major shock as the captain called out "Everyone put away your weapons!"

"Captain?" Several voices echoed in confusion that was shared by me.

"That was clearly a defensive trap made to contain, not injure, and the trap maker waited until AFTER his or her tracks gave away their presence instead of triggering it as soon as we were on the beach. And we ARE pirates, so it's understandable that they would be wary if they didn't know if we were the loot pillage and kill types or the adventure above all else kind. Now put away your weapons so that our islander doesn't do anything else rash."

There was a pause for a moment before I heard said weapons being put away and I crept forward a bit to see them all without weapons in their hands, the captain included. He looked around the area and called out "You can come out now, I swear on our Jolley Roger that you will not be harmed in anyway if you show yourself."

I briefly pondered if a swear on a Pirate's flag actually held weight before I sighed and said to myself "Really wish I had found that bullet proof vest before now." I then rappelled down the tree and walked into sight, removing the cloth over the camp and pushing the cloth hiding the solar still away in a sign of warning.

The captain actually grinned at the sight and said "So, we have a man who made a deal with the devil with us."

"Captain?" One of the closer crew members said, his hand twitching towards his sword though he thankfully didn't touch it.

"This man here ate a Devil Fruit lads, meaning he traded being able to swim for an ability, my guess being something to do with fabrics given what we've seen." The Captain said as he walked towards me.

"The Cloth-Cloth fruit to be specific." I said watching him walk warily towards me.

That got the man to pause and look down at his clothes for a brief moment before looking back up with a grin and a cackle. Continuing to walk over, he said "A truly dangerous fruit indeed!" Finishing walking over, he held out his hand and said "Captain Saul Nathaniel of the Roaming Orchestra Pirates, 17 million bounty, at your service."

I hesitated for a moment before I took the offered hand and shook it as I said "Matthew Bandstra, call me either Matt or Tac."

"Then call me Nate, so tell me Matt, how'd an Anchor such as yourself wind up on an uninhabited island such as this?" Nathaniel asked while his crew began spreading out, several of them with empty barrels heading off in the direction that I knew lead to the nearest fresh water source.

"Well I wasn't an Anchor when I first arrived but when you're on your own you take every advantage you can." I said with a shrug.

"Too true mate." Nathaniel said before he turned to look at my camp before pointing at my small stack of duck tape and said "And it seems you were rather fortunate to wash up with supplies, I take it you were on a freighter before you wound up here?"

"Something like that." I said noncommittedly with a shrug.

Nathaniel turned to study me with shrewd eyes before he shrugged and said "You're hiding something Matt, but far be it from me to pry." Going from shrewd to jolly in an instant, he said "So, do you by any chance play an instrument?"

"Well I used to play a Clarinet then an Alto Saxophone but that's been years, just over a decade in fact." I said with a shrug of my own.

Nathaniel grinned and said "Well why don't we see if we can't knock some of the rust off and you can join us for the night eh?"

I paused for a moment before I gave another shrug and said "Sure, why not."

Nathaniel gave a hearty pat on the back that had me stagger a couple of feet forwards and he laughed as he said "That's the spirit!" The Captain then all but shanghaied me to his ship in his enthusiasm to get me an instrument, thankfully allowing me to stay on shore and instead make a cloth line to the ship from the shore so that the crew still on board could slide a Saxophone case down the line towards us.

That little display of my power had the crew asking me to make even more zip lines to the ship, two high, and two low, so that way they wouldn't have to constantly row the boats back and forward. The captain offering me his small three sectioned spy glass for payment had me doing so. (Small for his hands anyway, he had a much bigger five section that fit his hands better as well.) After that, the door to the metaphorical trading hall was opened and the bartering of services granted began.

In return for mending several torn articles of clothing I received a very good hand saw, a hatchet (with a whet stone included to keep it sharp), one magnesium and flint fire starter, a pack of sea lion jerky, ten bunches of bananas, and a gallon container of apple juice. I also traded the Stetson hat I had made out of duck tape a few weeks ago for one pirate's baseball cap, said pirate whopping like he got the lottery as he went away with me studying the black and blue hat with consideration.

When I changed said hat to a camo style and it got out that I could actually change the colors of any cloth I had a whole new line to work through, the pirates readily agreeing to ten beri per article changed. (I WAS going to need money when I finally got off the island after all.) The one thing I refused to touch was the pirates' underwear earning laughter from them as I used my threads to manipulate those.

Probably the best trade I did though was repairing some of the ship's torn sails that the sailing master had been working on repairing. The repairs were not only easy to do but it gave me a new type of cloth in my internal library of cloths, and a water proof one to boot!

When the rush of trading was finally finished Nathaniel managed to coax me into finally using the Saxophone he had loaned me and I opened the case to find an Alto with a proper cleaning kit and two reeds of each strength type. Choosing a number two reed, I quickly assembled the instrument before I did a few test scales. The squeaking that came from being out of practice made several of the pirates wince but I soon had the instrument mouth piece properly tuned and sounding like I was still in High School Band class earning cheers from the whole crew. The sax players among the crew sans captain then proceeded to somehow drag me off to their own little group huddle without actually touching me where stands, chairs, and sheet music were soon produced, the group having me play along with them. I spent the next five hours getting back into proper 'playing shape' with the group, the crew members occasionally giving me corrections or tips on how to play some of the trickier bits of music while the rest of the crew continued with their supply gathering duties.

That night, I got a personal look at why the Roaming Orchestra Pirates got their name. They put on quite the show for me, seemingly pulling out all of the stops as they played under the light of several torches stuck into the beach, a massive bon fire cheerfully blazing a safe distance away and I subtly used my phone to record the songs for later listening as they played.

The pirates wound up staying for two more days, the first one spent entirely on a bunch of cloth zip line and climbing courses they managed to talk me into making while during the second Captain Nate gave me a tour of his ship and an explanation of how to work the various sailing stations in exchange for thirty of my rolls of duck tape. The captain generously offered me a slot on his crew but I of course had to decline. Feeling much more comfortable around him than when he and his crew first showed up, I explained a small amount of my circumstances, but only that I was being challenged to make it six months on the island. That had a bit of respect showing in the captain's eyes and he gave me a harmonica with their Jolly Roger on it from his pocket, the smaller one of two he kept on him apparently, no questions asked. I tried to get him to at least let me trade for it but he was adamant so in the end I merely shrugged and thanked him for the gift.

The morning of the fourth day had the Roaming Orchestra Pirates scrabbling over their ship and I waved from the beach as they made way to their next destination. I watched until they were finally gone before I cracked my neck and knuckles before I said "Well, back to work I guess."

Time Skip: Two And A Half Months Into Survival Challenge

I let out a whoop of glee when I finally found the bullet proof vest. It was hanging from the top of a tree three quarters of the way around the island beach. I must have walked under it at least six times when I had been exploring the island and had only found it now because I was training my 'Spiderman web sling' traveling ability through the tree tops.

Eagerly slinging the vest on over my t shirt, I shifted the cloth color from matte black to a much less heat absorbing tan. Another flex of my power as a test gave me a full body suit of the materiel and I let out a cackle as I realized that the vest was the kind that used specially woven fibers rather than metal or ceramic plates to resist bullets. Returning the suit back into its vest configuration for now, I gave a quick fist pump before I went back to training. As I continued slinging from tree branch to tree branch I considered how far I had gotten in my training.

My cloth size manipulation speed had gotten much better. It was still much slower than my motion manipulation speed but now instead of a glacier it was more along the lines of an average man sprinting. And I could now actually create other clothing away from my body so long as I had two strands leaving my body rather than one, braided around each other worked better but they could make the first joiner away from me as well. I was still limited to using only what cloths I knew but damnit, I was close to figuring out how to go off of only imagination, I just knew it!

Haki was a bit better. I had finally gotten the extreme basics of Observation going entering the second week of my second month here and I now had a fifteen foot range of Observational Haki up most of the time as a multi task challenge. The amount of plant and animal life I picked up if I wasn't careful in registering what I was sensing was absolutely _**insane**_! Seriously, there should NOT be that much insect life _inside_ of trees for Log's sake! It was fascinating on a scientific level if I focused on only one tree but downright terrifying if I allowed myself to think about what I knew the higher level pirates and Navy personnel were supposed to be capable of with this thing. The thought of being able to sense things over the god dammed ocean with all of its microbiological life and being able to pick up individual, and even SPECIFIC sentients on nearby or even far islands was a mind boggling display of information sorting.

Armament Haki was pretty interesting as well. I had started working on it three weeks ago and I was already making small amounts of progress. I could now make my finger and toe tips completely black which made training by cliff climbing an interesting and now much easier experience. (Didn't change the fact I kept a cloth harness and belay line on at all times though.) Much more useful in my mind was the fact that I could now put armament haki in my cloth constructs. True it was only the very end and ONLY when I had said tip near me before extending the cloth it was attached to. But the moment I ACTUALLY anchored a cloth through stone rather than 'anchoring' it by tied knot around a boulder I let out a whoop of excitement that startled the seagulls floating a hundred feet from shore below the cliffs.

I was brought out of my musings when I reached camp and blinked when I found an island chicken pecking at my nut/berry storage bin. Grinning at the bird, I shot a lasso of cloth out and cackled as it squawked in surprise when the loop of cloth secured itself around its neck. Pulling the struggling bird over while wrapping a few more bits of cloth around its wings, I grinned and said " _Hello, dinner_." I was going to be eating good tonight!

Time Skip: Four Months In

There was a rather large storm going on outside of my camp site making me glad that I had gotten the chance to add water proof cloth to my repertoire as buckets of water poured off of the large tent I had made. A sudden feeling of danger had me looking up from my game of Galaga on my reclaimed 3DS XL and I frowned as I turned it off and moved to the entrance of the tent to look outside. Nothing seemed obvious on the beach so I took out my three section telescope and began scanning a wider area. Even with the lights on board it took me about ten minutes of constant searching before I finally spotted a ship in the stormy weather that was on approach. What I saw on that ship had me paling as I muttered "Ah, hell!"

The ship was still too far out for me to get a good look at the Jolly Roger but what I saw was enough to tell me that I was in trouble: the flag was predominately RED. The crew must be particularly blood thirsty if they used that color as their standard flag color meaning it was highly unlikely I wouldn't have to fight them when they made landfall. The only things I had going for me was that the ship appeared to be a Caravel so I wasn't dealing with a very large crew and that it was extremely unlikely that they had spotted my camp since I didn't have anything that gave off enough light to reveal my presence on the island from so far away in this weather.

Quickly enacting my plans for when I needed to hide form visitors, (Plans that had allowed me to hide from two Marine ships as they passed the island on patrol) I quickly camouflaged the campsite before I went into the trees, my bullet proof vest turning into its suit configuration even as I once more looked through my telescope at the ship which was now close enough that I could both see its Jolly Roger and some of the actual crew.

The Jolly Roger had devil horns on the skull and the cross bones were a sword with blood drops on it crossed with a pistol that had a musket ball shooting out of the muzzle, complete with gas fire ball at the end between weapon and ammo. The crew seemed to consist of the type of bulky muscular men who mainly worked as Mafia enforcers, the man wearing the captain's hat the meanest looking of the bunch with no less than five flintlocks strapped to a bandoleer going across his chest and two cutlasses hanging from his belt, one on either side. Counting him, there were ten men on the ship that I could see, and as they got closer my much improved over the months Observation Haki confirmed that this was the entire crew, and each and every one of them radiating enough malice to make old Voldemort offer them a spot in his inner circle within the first minute of meeting them.

Seeing all of the flintlock pistols the crew carried I tsked to myself and said "At least all of this rain will keep those guns from working. Still, you'd think a crew that's as ready for violence as this one would have a counter for the rain…oh what the hell!?" I gripped the spying glass harder as one of the crew mates went into a cabin and came back with rifles that had cloth coverings over where the dry powder igniters were and began handing them out. Gritting my teeth, I hissed out "Murphy, you are such a god damned bastard!"

Growling to myself, I snapped the spying glass closed and said "Right, well no way I can just play hide and seek, there's too much gear at the camp now to move it all quick enough and these guys would definitely take it all if they found it. Looks like I'm going to have to just kick their collective asses and force them to leave."

Gritting my teeth in determination, I watched as the ship came closer to the beach before it dropped anchor no more than a hundred feet down the beach from my location in the trees and a landing skiff loaded with barrels was dropped from the port side, all but two of the crew members climbing a rope ladder down into it once it was in the water. The landing craft was a tight fit for the six men but they positioned themselves in a way that said that they were used to this as they rowed towards shore. The crew quickly beached their landing craft and the Captain shouted over the storm "Alright boys, you know the drill! Let's get the water then get out of this rain!"

"Aye Captain!" One of the sailors shouted back just as lightning flashed through the air.

I gave the sky an unimpressed look at its sense of theatrics before I glanced back down and watched as just like the Roaming Orchestra Pirates immediately began heading in the direction of the closest source of fresh water. Clearly my little island retreat was a popular resting stop for traveling pirates in this part of the East Blue if not one but two crews were already familiar with the local geography. I shook those thoughts from my head and watched as the group of five walked with the barrels on their backs until they walked over a specific spot and shot one of my threads out.

The next instant, a massive piece of cloth erupted out of the sand under the group quickly falling over them in a twisted mess and I grunted as I used my control over cloth to lift the writhing mess into the air before launching it towards the caravel. The body laden cloth slammed into its port side bow hard and I heard more than one yell of pain as I allowed gravity to take over and the cloth sank into the water.

Before I could wait to see if all of the bastards drowned or not as they tried to get out of my trap I yelped in surprised pain as a musket ball slammed into my torso making me loose my balance and fall out of the tree. A quick cloth grapple to a low branch stopped me from slamming into the ground too hard and I quickly rolled away and jumped behind another tree as my belatedly reactivated Observation Haki warned me and another bullet hit the ground right where I had been. (And why did I let it drop while that crew was still here!? IDIOT!)

"Come out devil worshipper! I'm going to enjoy gutting you for what ye did to me crew!" The captain shouted before firing a third shot that slammed into the tree I was hiding behind.

"Oh great, he even talks like a stereotypical pirate too." I muttered to myself before I spun around the tree and shot a strand at the Captain's shirt, jerking the right sleeve down which in turn forced his rifle up making his fourth shot fire up into the air. A second strand ripped his left leg up out of the sand and the captain went down with a curse even as I shot out of the tree cover towards him. I mostly ignored the musket fire from the two crewmembers on the ship, only dodging to the side when my Observation Haki said that one of them would have hit my right arm. As I ran the bullet proof cloth on my arm stretched out to the side and became rigid in the shape of an arm blade like the Pokemon Gallade and I yanked on my cloth strands jerking the captain through the air at me. I had the satisfaction of seeing the man's eyes widen before I side stepped and my cloth blade sliced into him and he let out a yell of surprised pain as he went flying past.

Unfortunately as the man landed I realized that while my cloth blade had dug into the man, it hadn't dug anywhere deep enough. He was quickly back on his feet and snarling as he pulled his two cutlasses out and snarled "So ye want to fight with blades you blasted Anchor? Well have at ye! Arrgh!" His running leap at me quickly ate the ten feet between us and as he came down with both cutlasses I hastily used Armament Haki to reinforce my arm blade and gripped my right arm with my left. The force of the impact of his blades onto my arm made me grunt and my left knee bent under the weight. Using the fact that both of his blades were temporarily busy and I was already on one knee, I quickly swept his legs out from under him before I continued my spin and slammed my Armament Haki infused left elbow into his diaphragm earning a satisfying pained whoosh of air from the bastard. But before I could either move to use my cloth blade on my right arm or make another blade on my left my Observation Haki sang out a warning and I rolled away from another musket ball that passed through where my heart had been.

Grappling back to the trees, I tsked to myself and said "Damn it, instincts are messing with my damn head. I should have let the bullet proof vest take that shot and killed the captain."

I didn't have much time to lament my lack of combat senses as the crew members that I had attempted to drown stormed up the beach towards their captain who was rather quickly getting up to his feet again. Tsking to myself as I allowed my cloth blade to go limp, I shot strands from each of my fingers except for my thumbs which connected to the running pirates' trouser legs. Quickly reinforcing the strands with cloth for extra insurance, I yanked my arms up and then thrusted them back down twice as fast. The result had the pirates being flung up to the air causing them to shout in surprise before they slammed back down onto the sandy beach and I saw all but two of them break both their legs on contact, the Captain who had managed to somehow roll with the landing and one unfortunate bastard who had tried to do the same and unfortunately wound up slicing into his legs with his cutlass. The injured pirates all howled in pain but the Captain ignored them as he rushed towards me with all of the inevitability of a train wreck.

Tsking to myself at the captain's apparent stupidity, I shot more strands at him only to jerk in surprise as he quickly cut the strands with his cutlasses and called out "That trick won't work twice on me ye damned demon worshipping bastard!"

He let out a triumphant yell as he got within five feet of me only to let out a grunt of surprised pain as a Haki embued cloth fist shot out and slammed into his stomach and stopped him cold. Scowling at the man, I drew the cloth back and turned the fist into a rope dart before I quickly shot the black tip at the top of his chest aiming for either the heart or lungs, I was beyond caring which at this point. The captain managed to block the dart with a desperate swing of his right cutlass and staggered a step back only to let out a curse as I connected with a cloth trap directly underneath him that threw him back down the beach hard enough to land in the water beside the landing boat. Yanking the rest of the giant cloth out in an explosion of sand, I crumpled the thousand foot wide cloth into a giant ball and made a complete four step bowling motion.

The giant boulder of cloth rapidly rolled down the beach and pancaked the injured pirates who all let out panicked yells before falling silent as the ball steamrolled them leaving battered and bruised bodies behind as it continued on its route towards the captain. I had the pleasure of hearing the man curse as he quickly sprinted out of the way but then I yanked my arm to the side and the ball jumped sideways and slammed into him with all of the subtlety of a wrecking ball flinging the flailing and yelling man a good hundred feet down the beach before the ball shot up into the air and slammed down onto the bastard crushing him between the wet sand and the mass of cloth. Yanking the cloth back towards me and making it hover flat in the air in front of the trees, I narrowed my eyes as I tried to see if any of the men on the beach were going to be getting up anytime soon.

When it was clear that none of them were, I shouted to the two men still on the ship "Get your asses over here and get them out of my sight before I decide to put them all out of their misery!" Two splashes and the sight of the men rapidly swimming to shore was my answer and I watched as they quickly hauled everyone back to the landing craft and quickly rowed away. I kept watching as they got the injured back onto the ship and quickly brought the landing craft on board as well before they scrabbled to pull up the boat's anchor and laboriously work to get the caravel back out to sea.

I waited until they were out of sight in the stormy waters before sagging with an explosive sigh and ran a hand through sopping wet hair and said "God I'm glad I had my Devil Fruit and bullet proof vest. Those guys would have carved me up like a turkey or put enough holes in me to imitate swiss cheese if I didn't." Looking up at the floating cloth, I began pushing it back under the sand even as another strand shot out to collect the other large piece of cloth that the waves had started to wash ashore as I continued "Good thing I've seeded this entire beach with cloth traps, that captain was pretty good for being in the Weakest Sea." Shaking my head with a morose sigh, I said "Or maybe I'm just that bad." Giving an explosive sigh this time, I gave one last shake of my head and said "Well they're gone now so nothing to do for it but to keep training."

Once I had finished hiding the two cloth traps I went back to my camp to drip dry my soaking wet clothes then went back to my 3DS XL. Training would have to wait until after the storm currently still going strong outside passed.

Time Skip: Five And A Half Months Into Training

I was just putting the collection bucket back under my solar still when I heard what sounded suspiciously like a lighthouse's fog horn coming from the ocean. Snapping my head up, I scanned the ocean before I squinted my eyes when I spotted a dot in the distance. Quickly heading to camp, I grabbed my spy glass before I sprinted back to shore and pulled it open and looked towards the distance. A few minutes later when I could finally make out details of the approaching ship I let out a rather large grin as I saw a familiar two masted ship, the Jolly Roger becoming clear four minutes later only confirming my knowledge. It looked like the Roaming Orchestra Pirates were coming back for a visit. Going by how Captain Nathaniel was standing on the bow and blew into his Saxophone making the fog horn sound again they were being 'polite guests' and 'calling in' first. Seeing the pirate with his own spy glass standing by the captain and looking towards the beach, I gave a wide sweeping wave of my free arm and saw the man say something to Nate who nodded with a grin as he put his Contrabass Sax back into place on his back and crossed his arms.

When the ship was finally close enough that its crew dropped anchor I quickly made a pair of zip lines down to the beach and Nate was one of the first down. Giving me a grin, he walked over and eagerly pulled me into a hug as he said "Matt! Good to see you still alive!"

I let out a 'oomph' as he made a good try at crushing my ribs with pure arm strength before he thankfully released me a moment later without prompt and I grinned up at him and said "Captain, it's good to see you again. I've got to be honest though, I didn't expect to see you again, at least not on this island."

Nate chuckled and said "Aye, I don't blame you. But I thought it would only be polite to check on you before we headed out to the Grand Line."

My eyes widened and I said "You're actually going into that mad house?" I didn't doubt the crew's abilities per se, it was just that they hadn't given a single hint that they were going to change oceans, especially not to that pirate graveyard.

Nate nodded with a hum and said "Hm, indeed, we've been in East Blue for the last five years, and the North Blue for five years before that. It's time we moved on again so we're heading for our next ocean."

"I see. You guys have a Log Post yet?" I asked a rather sensible question in my mind.

"Hah! Of course we do, ten of them in fact! We bought them the last time we were in Logue Town and we're probably going to use all of them too given how crazy even Paradise is supposed to be compared to the Blues. It'll be a wacky five years before we make a try at the New World but fun nonetheless." Nate said with a grin that wouldn't be out of place on the face of a stunt pilot before the biggest air show of the year.

I gave a nod at that. From the world history and geography part of my memories that I was allowed to keep it most likely _would_ be a 'wacky' bunch of years for the crew.

I was drawn from those thoughts though when Nate's grin went from slightly demented to more eager as he said "What about you? Did you get anymore visitors while we were gone or have you just been stuck lounging around in your hammock all day?"

I snorted and said "I have NOT just been lounging around all day you overgrown organ grinder monkey."

"Ha!" Nate barked out a laugh at the insult before he fell silent as he saw my face turn serious and I continued "And I did have more guests though they were no where near as nice as you guys."

"Oh? I'm assuming it was another pirate crew?" Nate asked curiously.

I nodded and said "Yeah, I didn't get a chance to find out their name but they had a Jolly Roger with devil horns on the skull and a bloody sword and a fired gun as the cross bones."

Nate winced and said "The Bloody Path pirates, Captain is named Kenchi Kikaro, bounty is currently at twenty five million beri after he and his crew completely slaughtered the small port town of Seagull's Roost." Giving me a quick look over, he said "They didn't manage to hurt you anywhere did they?"

I shook my head and pulled at my bullet proof vest as I said "One of the newest cloth constructs I made kept me safe from their bullets while my Devil Fruit let me deal with the Captain's swords. I managed to break most of the crew's legs and flatten the Captain with a massive ball of cloth before the two unharmed members of the crew grabbed the others and got the hell off the island."

"That's good." Nate said in relief before he eyed my vest with interested eyes and said "And you said that vest of yours can block bullets? Is there any chance you'd be willing to make us some?"

"It won't protect you guys from blades very well you know." I warned him even as the vest began growing long sleeves in preparation for copying.

"No defense is perfect obviously." Nate said waving his hand dismissively.

I nodded at that before I hummed and said "True enough, what have you got to trade for all of them?"

Nate cocked his head and muttered a few numbers under his breath before he said "I can give you two hundred beri for each vest. After that we'd need to switch to something else in exchange since we still need to make one last supply run before we hit Reverse Mountain."

By my estimate that was rather low but considering how easy it was to actually make copies of this material I could understand it, and besides, that was just the monetary part of the deal and so I said "Give me five gallons of apple juice and a couple crates of bananas and we've got a deal."

"I can do that." Nate said with a grin and we shook on it before Nate began barking orders to some of his men who quickly went back to the ship once I had made the needed zip lines for them. Once the lines were up and I had received my payment for the vests I had everyone line up in front of me in two rows and began making their vests, adding their names in whatever colored stitching they wanted. I made the vests black but if the crewmembers wanted a different color then they could pay me ten beri for a different one. Once everyone was outfitted, with another ten blank vests made for any future crews, the Pirates began bringing their torn clothes and anything else they wanted to swap colors on.

After a surprising amount of torn clothes repaired, apparently they had a rather bad run in with another pirate group that to a member used butterfly knives of all things, a large bon fire was made and the crew gave a free style performance, no sheet music, just playing whenever and whatever each crewmember felt fit with the current music. I actually joined in a little with the harmonica Nate had given me a few months back, though I mostly just hanged back and made sure my phone was recording the whole thing. When the last piccolo fell silent at one o'clock, Nate stood up gathering everyone's attention.

The captain gave a fond glance around as he said "Lads, and lasses." He nodded at where the few females on his crew were sitting together before he continued "Tomorrow we begin heading for the Grand Line, which will be our new home for the next five years. Once we leave this island, it will be full speed ahead to Logue Town, and from there, to Reverse Mountain. Rest well tonight and as we travel to the end of this chapter of our journey, remember the times we have had here, both good, and bad. The friends we've made," He lifted an imaginary mug towards me in toast with a grin, an action several other crew members copied, "and the enemies we've left defeated and crying frustrated tears." Chuckles filled the air at that and Nate's grin got just the little bit wider before he finished "Cement those memories into your minds my Nakama, for they are what make us who we are, and then look towards the future as we continue to build on that foundation. And you can't build well if you're tired, so off to bed with you lot, we'll be lifting anchor at 0800 hours tomorrow."

With that slightly less than profound ending to his speech, Nate sent his crew back to the ship. As some of the crew made sure the fire was out before they joined the others in heading back, he walked over to me and held out his hand as he said "I know we'll be saying our goodbyes in the morning, but I still wish you luck for the remainder of your challenge."

I accepted it as I said "And I wish you luck as well. Stay on your toes when you get to Reverse Mountain, I've heard stories that an Island Whale has been camped on the other side for the last fifty years." (And again, the lines of world knowledge and story line memories were once more blurred as I tried to figure out why I would know that.)

Nate blinked at that before he nodded with a smile and said "Thanks for the head's up, we'll be careful."

He shifted his grip from my hand to a pat on my shoulder before he bade me good night and made his way over to one of the zip lines attached to his ship. I waited until I was sure he was on the deck before I let out a sigh and said "Two more weeks before I follow you guys." Shaking my head from those thoughts, I made doubly sure that the fire was out before walking back towards my camp. The last thing I did before I went to sleep was to set an alarm for 0700 so that way I would not miss my friends' departure.

The next morning was full of final goodbye hugs and words exchanged. When it was time for them to leave, I grappled up to the cliff top and watched through my spy glass as they slowly disappeared over the horizon. Giving a sigh and wishing them luck, I said to myself "Safe journeys you guys." I remained on that cliff long into the day and only got off around five in the evening when my stomach finally demanded food too loudly to ignore.

Time Skip: The Day Before The Straw Hat Pirates Arrive

When I woke up that morning, I felt something extra on my chest besides my duck tape and cloth sheets. Sitting up, I stared blankly at the expanse of silvery cloth and letter that had fallen down to my lap for a few sleepy moments before I reached down and grabbed the letter to tiredly look at it. There was no address or anything on the letter and at first I thought one of the letters I had gotten before on my first day and the day I received my modified 3DS XL had gotten free. A quick check though showed that they were still in the sleeves I had made in my tent for them though. Still confused in my sleep addled state, I reached over to my knife and slit open the top of the envelope and pulled out the letter. When I started reading it, I instantly snapped awake.

 _ **Hey there, Mate. First of all, I'd like to say CONGRATULATIONS! You've made it through the entire six months on the island. True, you had SOME help with that roaming group of musicians but I never actually said you had to go it**_ **completely** _ **without help so I'm letting that slide. Besides, if I wanted you to have no contact I would've just made it so that anyone who came would just move to one of the surrounding islands, so like I said, no biggie. Now we get to the fun bits. The Straw Hat Pirates will be arriving onto the island at roughly 0900 hours so make sure you're awake by then. I won't be saying**_ **where** _ **they're making landfall though so keep your eyes and ears peeled. Finally, a deal's a deal, so here's your Invisibility Cloak, I'm certain you can put it to good use, just don't get caught using it to peak on the ladies in the shower room, naughty, naughty, naughty!**_

I rolled my eyes at the last sentence. Honestly, who did this R.O.B. think I was, Jiraya of the Sannin? And why did I hear Jon Reep saying those last three words in my mind when I read them? Dismissing that last bit, I put the letter in the envelope with a grin. Six months of no indoor plumbing, none of my favorite foods, and no temperature control, all of the hardships I had endured, it was all for this one piece of cloth sitting on my lap. Quickly standing up, I eagerly grabbed the cloak and wrapped it around myself and gained a demented grin as my body disappeared. "Oh yes, I'm going to be having fun times with you!" I said with a cackle.

Putting the latest letter with the other two, I quickly had my breakfast before I went outside to see just what I could do with the new cloth addition to my internal cloth archive. A few hours of experimenting had shown that I could both enlarge and shrink the cloth, I could combine it with the bullet proof vest in a manner that made it seem like I wasn't wearing it, or I could have a bullet proof stealth suit which would make sneaking around during a fire fight a lot safer prospect. I could also use the cloth to make objects disappear from sight. I actually made an entire tree invisible which had me cackling at the thought of being able to do that on a ship I was on. Of course, I would have to see if a ship could even _move_ when covered in an invisibility cloak in a way that the crew wouldn't look like they were standing on thin air. There were other ideas that I would have liked to test but unfortunately, there weren't any safes nearby so they'd have to wait.

The rest of the day was spent collecting all of the duck tape traps I had scattered around the island. The animals caught in them all got stays of executions and I swear more than one of them gave deep sighs and had sweat drops of relief. I decided to leave the tape markers on the trees since I'm sure the people who visited the island after I left would appreciate them. (And it would be funny if some of them tried to find an inhabitant that wasn't there anymore. *Snicker*) Once all of the _duck tape_ traps were collected, I made sure that my five gallon water container and three water canteens were full since you could never have too much potable water when on the seas after all. I figured I'd leave the cloth traps in place to serve as suitably impressive demonstrations of my abilities.

With all of that done, the only thing left to do was to set my alarm so that I didn't miss the Straw Hats arrival and to settle down with my 3DS XL and play some good old fashioned Nintendo Classics and wait.

End

Author's Notes: Update Schedule on my profile, and please always check for new polls.

And we are…done! I wanted to go ahead and get the six months out of the way because there is only so much of six months of training that a person can read before they get tired of the material. Also, for those wondering, yes, I am taking a page out of old Oda's playbook, but I'm going to keep you guessing on that front. (I know, I'm as evil as Aku. I can tell because Voltaire's When You're Evil is playing in the background. MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!)


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Quick review answering to a guest:  
From: Ghostalker (Guest)

Ghostalker:Hey Tac, love your stories, hope to see more of this one. One quick question though, how long will it take your character to realize that Duck Tape is pretty much a strip of cloth with glue on the front and a waterproof back? Also, I liked how you used Fallout 4's Ballistic Weave as the bullet proofing of your vest/suit. They only use the carbon-ceramic plates in real life because most bullets these days are tear-dropped shaped to maximize the use of the rifling in most guns these days and penetrating armor, where as in the One Piece universe they are still using ball ammunition. The weave can handle a good amount of that.

First off, Ghostalker, if you had actually wanted an answer, why didn't you sign in? I can't respond if you don't sign in.

Now, in regards to your question: 'I' don't need to realize that my Devil Fruit can manipulate duck tape, I'm already aware. The reason why you haven't seen me use it yet is both a matter of control and its makeup. First off, off the top of my head without rewatching the first mythbusters' duck tape episode, the silver stuff only has about 87 pounds tensile strength meaning that I won't be able to use it to go swing around trees like I could with a cloth grapple. Now, I COULD just make a bunch of strands that are together but that would take more time than I would currently have while swinging through the trees. Now, the reason why it isn't used in any traps is because of the sticky side. My traps are mostly BURIED in sand which means that they would pick up a LOT of sand and it would be harder to smooth them out if I tried to fold any tape sheets. Basically, tape doesn't have any FULLY offensive uses at this moment until I can get much better with using my fruit. Once I get to the point where I can rapidly produce multiple strips of tape together without messing up what I'm creating though THEN I could begin using it for capture purposes and other things.

Hope that answers your question. Now, onto the story!

Story Start: 8:55 AM

I had a simple but elegant solution for determining where the Straw Hats were going to land. In the center of the island, I had constructed a tower ten feet taller than the tallest tree on the island and was sweeping the surrounding ocean with my three segment telescope in ten minute intervals. It had been a good control exercise since I had to tightly roll various lengths of cloth into sturdy 'logs' which I had then secured via sheets of duct tape wrapped around them. The result was a sturdy platform that barely even shook when I had fell to the temptation of giving a couple of short hops on the top platform of cloth stretched over the four corners.

I had started my sweeps at roughly 8:20, the tower having been a relatively quick affair to build once I had gotten the design aspect down. For all that it had tasted absolutely Primus damned _**HORRIBLE**_ when I ate it, I sincerely LOVED my devil fruit! I was just slowly sweeping the part of the ocean that if my camp was twelve o'clock this would be nine o'clock when I spotted a Caravel sized ship roughly four miles out from the coast. A couple of minutes later, I grinned as I saw the Jolly Roger of a straw hat wearing skull and cross bones on the mainsail. It looked like I was finally going to meet my future crew.

Using my devil fruit powers in order to begin shortening the tower supports from the bottom up, I idly considered just how I should do this. I had been considering it ever since the first week but I had FAR too many ideas. Do I go with a quick net trap ala Star Wars Episode Six and 'run across' the crew that way, meet them on the beach right out of the gate, 'come across' them while I made Spiderman proud as I traveled the tree tops? Decisions, decisions. As the last of the tower vanished, I shook my head and said to myself "I guess It all depends on if they're in the woods by the time I get to them or not."

So saying, I shot a cloth grapple at the nearest tree branch that could support not only my weight but the force of the grapple retracting to bring me up to it. Soon as I was close enough, I grabbed the branch and pushed myself up like I was getting out of the pool before I swung my legs forward under the branch. Swinging around the circular branch gave me the momentum I needed to begin grapple swinging through the trees and I made sure to have my Observation Haki up as I made my way to the coast. I wouldn't have been able to do both at the same time when I was first learning Observation Haki but thankfully about three months of practice allowed me to grapple ONLY the tree branches that could handle the strain. There had been quite a few close calls when a branch had snapped like a much smaller twig before I worked out THAT particular trick.

I actually met someone going the other way like this. A loud "YAAHOO!" came from the beach head and not ten seconds later, a black haired teenager wearing sandals, shorts, an open red vest, and a straw hat on his head came looping towards me with his arms stretching. Clearly, he too was a Devil Fruit User as well. We saw each other at the same time and his already big grin grew as he adjusted his angle to land on a sturdy branch as he said with _literal_ stars in his eyes "Wow, that's so cool! My name's Luffy, what's yours?!"

I shifted my own course to land on the tree next to his and withdrew my grapple, making it form into a hand as I brought it over and sent it towards him as I said "Name's Matt, though I also go by Tac. Cloth-Cloth Fruit User, you?"

Luffy eagerly gripped the cloth hand and shook it with a grin as he said "Gomu-Gomu Fruit, I'm a Rubber Man!" He pulled at the corner of his lips with his free hand and stretched the side of his mouth out by a full foot before letting it snap back.

"Huh." I said blinking at the sight of that _supposedly_ impossible biological feat before I grinned and said "Going by the hat on your head, and the Jolly Roger I spotted on your ship as you came in, I'm going to assume it's safe to say that you're the captain?"

"Shishishi, that's right! I'm going to be the Pirate King!" Luffy said with a grin.

I felt _something_ at his words thanks to my Observation Haki and I cocked my head with narrowed eyes for a moment before I shrugged my shoulders and said "That's a pretty lofty goal you've set for yourself, not to mention a rather dangerous one as well."

"Shishishishishishi, yeah, the adventures are going to be awesome!" He said with a closed eye grin before he suddenly snapped them open and said "Hey, I know, join my Crew!"

I gave a single blink and barely heard my own idle thought of 'Well that was far easier than I thought it would be.' The thought was barely heard due to three people who I had noticed coming up from behind Luffy on the forest floor screaming a unanimous "WHAT?!"

Luffy unfortunately HADN'T noticed them and the shout startled him enough that he lost his footing and fell to the ground. I WOULD have been worried about him if I didn't know he had a devil fruit but that combined with my knowledge that the people of this world were naturally a bit stronger than where I was from kept me calm. The red headed girl who began roughly shaking Luffy had me slightly concerned though as she yelled out "DON'T JUST GO AROUND ASKING RANDOM STRANGERS TO JOIN YOU IGNORAMIUS MORON!"

I briefly considered going for the subtle approach before I shrugged and with a throwaway thought of 'Ah screw it!' I called down to her "Actually, the whole reason why I've been on this island for the last six months was to join the Straw Hat Pirates."

That had all four of said pirates snapping their heads up to look at me with incredulous looks, and the girl said "What? But that's impossible! We only made our flag a day ago, and we haven't even known Luffy for a full month yet! How could you possibly have known that we would come to this island six months in advance?!"

I grinned and said "Let's just say for now that it involves a deal with a deity level being." Dropping down to the ground and landing in a crouch, I stood up and said "Let's bring your ship around the island so that way it's by my base camp and I can give you a proper explanation."

It took some doing, mostly because the rest of the crew thought that I was obviously crazy and they should leave the island before they were infected but eventually their ship was anchored in front of my camp and I had four cloth and duct tape chairs made for them while I leaned against a tree, the letters left by the ROB along with my phone and 3DS XL for further proof in my pockets in case they were needed. Idly scratching my cheek, I said "Alright, let's start with the basics of my situation, do any of you know what the multiverse theory is?"

Seeing all four shake their heads, I said "Alright, here's the technical definition: The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them. In layman's terms, this means that there are more universes out there than just the one we are living in, some radically different with completely different rules that its inhabitants have to live by, others where the only difference between them and ours is a single choice someone made. For instance, here you could have chosen to have chocolate ice cream while in the next one over you could have had vanilla. Basically, anything that could happen, has happened somewhere, even supposed works of fiction that would be impossible in one realm has happened in another."

"Oh, so it's a mystery verse!" Luffy said pounding fist into palm with a nod of understanding.

Nami, Ussopp, and Zorro all groaned at that while I blinked before shrugging and said "Pretty much, where I came from it's only a Theory with no way to actually prove it. Well, there WAS no way to prove it but unfortunately I don't think I can tell the Big Brains back home that they were right."

"Wait, are you saying that you're from another universe?!" Nami asked in clear disbelief.

I inclined my head in agreement before I formed a globe out of cloth and began rotating it along with a miniature moon as well and said "This is my Earth. It's got only one moon and is roughly 70% ocean with seven main continents and about oh, maybe a thousand islands, 443 with a land area of 970 square miles or more and at least 335 whose land area ranges from 190 to 970 scare miles. Everything else in that number are pretty much just thin strips of land with a few palm trees on them or just above water reefs and volcanos." Dismissing the globe, I continued to a more relevant bit of information and said "Where I come from the events of this world is one of the most popular stories, it had actually been on its twentieth year when I left."

"Really?!" Luffy and Ussopp asked with stars in their eyes.

"Yep." I said cheerfully before I grew solemn, immediately making all of the others, even Luffy, suddenly stiffen. Sighing, I said "I don't like thinking about the events that lead to me meeting the being who brought me here, so instead, I'm going to show you." Cloth flowed away from me and formed a miniature highway in front of the group. As cars made out of cloth began rolling down it, I said "These are the main form of land transport in my world, they're called cars if you're interested. Anyway, they can reach high speeds, some up to over two hundred miles per hour, though the speed limits are usually set between thirty and seventy miles per hours. Still, even with those relatively slow speeds, accidents can happen. And when they do on highways, you get this…"

The four watched the accident happen with rapt attention. Three of them grew rather distressed when they saw the final moments where I was slammed into my truck while trying to save the life of another. Zoro seemed unphased though I noticed a slight tightness in his eyes for a moment, and only because I happened to be looking in his direction at the time.

I studied the figure pinned to the red truck for a moment before I shook my head and got rid of the scene as I said "I should have died that day, and technically, I did."

That made Nami and Luffy flinch while Ussopp shakily pointed a finger at me with wide eyes as he said "A-are you telling me you're a g-g-g-ghost?!"

I shrugged and said "I died in my old world, there's just no way my body would have survived being crushed between two vehicles like that, not to mention the blow to my head at the end, but here I'm still physically solid. I eat, sleep, perform bodily functions. Take it as you well."

"As interesting as that is, I'm more interested in what happened next, you mentioned someone brought you here?" Zoro asked trying to get to the important part of why I had been brought here to join THEIR crew.

I nodded and said "When the crashes started happening, we had an audience of sorts. A R.O.B., short for Random Omnipotent Being, had been watching. He saw my actions and apparently feeling rather bored thought that I could provide him with some entertainment and made me a deal. The bare basics of the deal were that he would send me to a world where the events of the story, titled One Piece, if you're curious would happen and make it so that way I would meet you guys, and he even gave me the choice of three Devil Fruits, Air Logia, Lemur Zoan, or Cloth Paramecia. In exchange though, he took all of my memories of the story line, leaving only the same world knowledge that a native would have."

"He took your memories?!" Luffy asked, shooting to his feet with an outraged look on his face and his hands clenched so hard into fists that his hands shook.

"Whoa! Easy there Luffy!" I said holding a hand up and tried to calm him down as I said "Considering that I would have been dead if he didn't do this, I considered it a pretty good trade off. Besides, this R.O.B. seems rather agreeable to negotiation and I managed to sweeten the deal somewhat."

"Oh? And how did you 'sweeten the deal'?" Nami asked with a smile.

"First off, I got him to agree to drop me off on an island in the East Blue where you guys WOULD find me. Second, he allowed me to remember the name of your crew. And third, when he dropped me off on this island, he left me with a proper knife and a pallet full of duct tape." I said counting off my fingers before I grinned and said "Apparently the way I said my request for the last part amused him and he not only agreed to the requests, he upgraded my phone to have infinite battery and WiFi signal, not that I expect you guys to know what that means." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it up for them to see.

Putting it back in my pocket, I said "Once I got here, I found this letter on top of the pallet of tape." I pulled out the first letter and handed it over to Nami who pulled it out of the envelope and the three guys crowded around her shoulders to read it.

Once they had read the letter, Ussopp let out an impressed whistle and said "Man, spending six months on an uninhabited island, that is badass!" He then grinned at me and said "Hey, you think you can let me try this Invisibility Cloak you got?!"

I shrugged and pulled the cloth out of the pocket it was in, splitting a portion off and making it grow into the original size before I tossed it over and said "Knock yourself out."

Ussopp let out a whoop and flung the cloak around his body, leaving only his head visible he crowed something about the Great Captain Ussopp being able to sneak past anyone only for Luffy to rip the cloak off and try it. That devolved into a furious scrabble along the beach as each tried to claim the cloak. Watching them, I could FEEL a sweat drop forming on the back of my head and said "Uh, they do realize that with my Devil Fruit I could just make a second one right?"

The two didn't hear me since their struggles had taken them a few hundred feet away by this time but Nami let out an explosive sigh and said "Doubt it, they can be such idiots." She then seemed to shift personalities as she batted her eyelashes at me and said "But I wouldn't mind if you made _me_ one as well."

"Later, once the story's done." I promised her before I looked back at the fighting Captain and Sniper. Seeing that they were over a cloth trap, I connected to it and the sand exploded as the cloth shot out of it and wrapped around the two. A little bit of cloth manipulation had the two separated in large 'fists' of cloth and they shot back to our position. I reclaimed the cloak as it floated over and said "Enough you two, I haven't finished the story yet, if you both want one so badly, I'll make you both a cloak." That got them to settle down and when I released them, they instantly went back to their seats. I gave Zoro an inquisitive look and said "Do you want one as well since all of the rest of us will have one?"

Zoro visibly considered it before he nodded and said "It could be helpful to escape from the Marines if we had to."

I nodded at that and said "Moving on, I spent the first day here making sure I had everything to survive. When I was younger, I was part of a group called the Boy Scouts of America. It and its counterpart the Girl Scouts of America were civic groups that on top of helping out the community put a strong emphasis on camping and wilderness survival. This coupled with knowledge from one of my favorite tv shows meant that I knew what I had to do to survive out here. First thing I did was use the plastic wrapped around the pallet of tapes and some of said tape to make that Solar Still over there for long term water collection." The group followed my nod at where the Still was still set up. I planned to bring the plastic and collection cup with me when we left and add a duct tape basin for it so that way we could use it out at sea. If the calculating look Nami gave it was any indication, she too had similar plans.

"Once that was made, I made a quick bit of shelter out of tape then went in search of fresh water since while the solar still is a constant method of collecting fresh water so long as it has salt water to work with, the process is rather slow. Once I had enough fresh water and a basket of nuts and berries, I called it a night. The second day, I ate my Devil Fruit. As I'm sure Luffy will agree with me, I have NEVER tasted anything that disgusting before." Luffy nodded matching my disgusted look and stuck out his tongue with a heartfelt "Eugh!" Shaking myself from that memory, I continued "Once I had my Devil Fruit, I began training it along with Observation Haki and Armament Haki, two skills that pretty much everyone and their grandmother can use in the second half of the Grand Line. Don't worry, I'll teach you guys and any other crewmates we have as well. A month later, a pirate crew came ashore and I did a bit of trading with them, mending and changing anything made out of cloth for some useful supplies. A month and a half after that, I found the bullet proof vest that letter mentions, and yes, I'll make you guys vests as well. It really came in handy when another pirate crew came upon the island four months into my training. Suffice to say, they were NOT nice. I managed to send them packing though after I broke most of the crew's legs. A few weeks ago, the first crew came back and we did some more trading. After that, it was just more training until you guys showed up today."

"Sounds like you'd make a good addition to the crew." Zoro said with a grin that he had made when I mentioned breaking the bones of the hostile crew.

"It WOULD save us a lot of money to have someone capable of manipulating cloth with us, repaired sails and clothes, new clothing for free…" Nami said trailing off at the end happily.

"You get the first five free, after that I'm charging you a hundred beri per article." I said.

"That's still several fractions cheaper!" Nami chirped, yes _chirped_ happily.

"I've got a few ideas dealing with that invisibility cloth of his." Ussopp said musingly.

Luffy laughed happily as he said "Shishishishi, then it's decided, we have a new crew member!"

The other three voiced their agreement before Nami turned serious and said "Uh, just one thing Matt. Do you have any other proof about your story? It's just that for all we know, you made this letter by yourself and you had your Devil Fruit before you got here." At the _looks_ she was getting from the male members of her crew, she huffed and said "I'm not doubting him, but you have to admit that the thought of him coming from another world is pretty hard to believe."

I gave a dismissive wave and said "No worries, I understand." That said, I mused on what I could do before I grinned and said "I know, I think you guys are going to like this." Pulling my phone back out, a screen of cloth formed with two bowls of cloth on either side and a 'cable' of cloth soon connected with my phone which I put on a cloth stand even as I went through my TV show archives. A dome of translucent cloth began forming overhead putting all of us into shade as I said happily "I figured out this trick three days ago, I call it my Cloth Theatre."

Finding what I wanted, I pushed Play on my screen and formed a fifth cloth seat next to Zoro as the screen changed colors to show a moving picture of a space station hanging in orbit and sound began coming out of the cloth speakers as they vibrated in JUST the right way.

" _It circles the planet sixteen times a day three hundred and fifty kilometers above our heads. The International space station is the largest man made object in the sky, and is home to ten astronauts. They are carrying out experiments to investigate how life might be moved_ off _the planet. Such work may one day allow us to colonize the moon, or even Mars. Four land mark space craft lie behind the success of the International Space Station, at the heart of each structure lies a technological breakthrough that allowed engineers to build bigger stations. One by one, traveling up the scale, we'll reveal the stories behind these incredible machines. Five ingenious leaps forward, that enabled space stations to grow from big, to bigger, into the world's biggest."_

The title screen played showing the words Big, Bigger, and Biggest forming out of a single block like a Transformer in a Michael Bay movie, and a glance to my side showed that everyone including Zoro was watching eagerly.

Exactly forty six minutes and forty one seconds later, Nami said "Alright, I'm convinced."

"That was awesome!" Ussopp and Luffy shouted, the stars in their eyes easily making the cloth overhead useless in keeping the area shaded.

"Hmph, I'll admit it was somewhat interesting." Zoro allowed, though he had a small grin on his face that had grown a quarter of the way into the episode.

"Ne, ne, Matt! What else do you have?!" Luffy asked and I considered for a moment before I nodded and said "Alright, I'll show you guys one of my favorite shows. It deals with an incredibly famous ship that took part in World War II seventy three years ago."

Both Luffy and Ussopp eagerly bounced in their seats as I switched shows to Battle 360 and energetic music that automatically spoke of bad ass things to come began playing while an announcer said _"USS Enterprise, AKA the Big E. A fighting city of steel. She is the most revered and decorated ship of World War II. On this three hundred and sixty degree battlefield, where threats loom, on the seas, in the skies, and in the ocean depths. The Enterprise's enemies could be anywhere, and everywhere. Now, follow this sea bound band of brothers through four years of hell. From Pearl Harbor, to the doorstep of Japan. There's nowhere to run, when the battle is all around you. Battle 360, USS Enterprise, Call to Duty."_

Ten hours later, a much bigger screen showed the last of the tenth episode, Luffy having insisted that we watch all ten episodes, not that I blamed him, I loved that show. After the third episode though, we had to have lunch so I had made the Cloth Theater even bigger so that way we could watch and listen to it at a distance while we prepared lunch. Luffy and Ussopp had hung onto every word of the show, cheered and mourned equally at the appropriate parts. Even Zoro had watched them all attentively, though he hid his interest much better than the other two males.

Nami got up from where she had been laying on the beach using a cloth to keep the sand off of her with a groan and a stretch as she said "I'll admit, that had been interesting." She then frowned as she said "Of course, we were SUPPOSED to be gathering supplies today. Guess we'll just have to stay here for the night and get the supplies tomorrow." She gave me an apologetic look and said "Sorry Matt."

"Eh, it's fine, I've been here for six months, I can wait another night to leave." I said with a dismissive wave from where I was securing the new tub for the Solar Still on the back of the Going Merry's deck. While the others had watched the show, I had stowed all of my supplies in the men's quarters and added my water containers and food to their storage areas.

It came as no surprise to me that since the Merry was anchored off the shore that Luffy demanded a giant bon fire for the night. In order to keep him from stripping the island its trees I kept the massive thing going with large logs of cloth. It seemed like a waste of the material to me, but I'd rather not leave this island missing half of its trees so I kept that to myself.

Despite the late night, Nami had us up at 7 the next morning. After a quick breakfast where I found out that Luffy loved to grab everything on the table, even if it was on our plates, I lead the way to the stream where I had filled my water containers during my stay on the island, the others following with most of us with a barrel on our backs. I say most of us because Zoro had two barrels, one for each shoulder, and Nami was carrying personal sized containers that hung from a strap on her shoulder.

Once all of the water was back on the Going Merry, Nami gave me a quick overview of the terminology of the ship before she had Zoro raise the anchor and then we began making our way away from the island. As we sailed away from what had been my home for the last six months, I gave it one last look before I turned my gaze out to sea. I was finally on my way to the greatest adventure of my life.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on my profile. Please look at the Poll, it may be a new one.

And we are off into the wide blue yonder, and for SOME reason, I'm now hearing the song Anchors Aweigh right now. I've decided that this island replaces the animal one with that guy in the chest in case any of you are wondering, so we'll be making our way for the Baratie next.


	4. Chapter 4

4\. Finding Baratie

The last day had been pretty smooth sailing. Good weather, Nami had put us on a strong current for a couple of hours that gave us just a little more speed, and the Going Merry practically sailed herself. As such, most of the day had been spent with the crew telling me about how they had joined. Luffy even told me about how he had gotten his Straw Hat. The fact that a YONKO of all people sacrificed an _arm_ for a scrawny kid in the 'weakest ocean' said that whatever adventures we were going to face that I had forgotten were going to be downright _**EPIC**_. That kind of origin story demanded nothing less.

Sleeping in a hammock that night on a ship with three other males rather than on an island took a little getting used to. Luffy wound up shifting to hang sideways off of his hammock and with his body being rubber, his head had drooped a bit bending his neck at the base in a way that made him snore like a stuttering engine. Still, nothing a pair of Cloth Headphones connected to my phone in order to listen to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra couldn't handle.

Today was another good day weather wise, filled with clouds sure, but the kind of wispy white ones that would have Naras sighing in contentment as they lounged on a hill side for hours. At the moment though, I wasn't paying attention to them. Instead, I was leaning against the Mizzen Mast watching as Luffy loaded a cannon, Ussopp standing next to him. When they lit the fuse, I called out "Fire in the hole!" Nami quickly joined me in slapping our hands over our ears. As expected, the cannon let out a loud blast, waking up Zoro who had been sleeping on the roof of the kitchen. A pillar of water erupted at _least_ a hundred yards from the rock pillar that Luffy had been aiming at and he cocked his head as he said "Huh? That was way off!"

"What are you doing?" Zoro asked as he sat up.

"Cannon practice!" Luffy called back. Ussopp raised the cannon barrel on his turn and the cannon ball smashed right through the pillar. Luffy grinned and said "Awesome! You hit it on your first try!"

Ussopp grinned and said "Whadya think?! I'm awesome when it comes to aiming! Impressed?!"

"It's settled! You're our sniper!" Luffy said with a grin, clapping a hand on Ussopp's shoulder as they went to put the cannonballs back.

As they left the Mizzen Deck, I looked at Nami in confusion and said "Shouldn't that be 'Master Gunner'?"

Nami sighed and said "You really want to try to teach _Luffy_ proper naval terminology?"

Zoro's snort at her question perfectly expressed his idea of how well THAT would stick and I shrugged as I said "Eh, fair enough."

Nami glanced up at the sky noting the position of the sun and said "Well, I guess I might as well get started on lunch." She got up off of the lawn chair she had been reading on and Zorro and I followed her into the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later, there was the sound of crashing and someone shouted "Come out you damn pirates!"

Zoro glanced up from where he had been leaning against the wall and said "Hm, that voice?"

I glanced at him, but turned my gaze on Luffy who swung open the door and called out "What the…Who are you?!"

He was answered by the voice shouting "How dare you, a nameless pirate try to kill my partner?!" There was another sound of smashing wood then Luffy's angered voice shouting out "Don't wreck my ship!"

I winced when there was a final smashing sound and said "Sound's to me like Luffy is the one doing the wrecking."

Nami sighed and said "I guess we better see what's going on."

We came out to the sight of a guy wearing sunglasses, a blue jacket, and with a tattoo on his cheek laid sprawled out on the deck. Zoro cocked his head and said "Hey, Johnny, what are you doing?"

"You know this guy?" I asked with my own cocked head.

Zoro nodded and said "Yeah, he and his partner are a couple of bounty hunters I've worked with in the past. Speaking of, oi Johnny, where's Yosaku?"

"Big Bro Zoro? Why are you on a pirate ship?" The now named bounty hunter asked as he spun to sit on his knees before shaking his head and said "That's not important right now, Yosaku's in big trouble!"

Quickly standing, the bounty hunter showed us where a pair of grappling hooks were attached to our ship, a smaller boat on the other end of the lines. A glance down showed another man wearing a green coat and a red face shield laying on a sheet, his bandage wrapped middle tinged with blood. Seeing that, I leapt over the side and down to him and began checking vitals as I called up "Ussopp, the first aid pack is right next to the fridge, grab it!"

"On it!" our Sniper called. A quick check showed that only Yosaku's torso was wounded so I used my Textakinesis to lift the sheet Yosaku was on up and onto the Going Merry's deck. I ignored Johnny's staring as I came back up and as I removed the dirty bandages, and I meant that there was more than just blood on them, I asked "So what happened?"

Ussopp returned at that point and I pulled on a set of rubber gloves and began cleaning the wound as Johnny said "He got a small hit when we were bringing in a bounty, but it wasn't anything we hadn't handled before, it was done bleeding within an hour even. But a few days ago, he began losing consciousness, his teeth started falling out, and his old wound opened up and started bleeding again. I didn't know what to do, so I had him resting on that island over there, but then a cannonball came from this ship!"

I glanced up at Ussopp and Luffy who had their eyes bugged and their jaws dropped before they gave short bows and said together "I am so sorry." Snorting slightly at that, I looked back down at the cleaned wound and seeing that for all of the blood on the old bandages it wasn't _too_ bad, secured a gauze pad on it with tape then rewrapped his torso as I said "Sounds like scurvy to me."

"Sounds like it to me as well." Nami said with a nod of agreement before she snapped her fingers and pointed at Luffy and Ussopp and said "There are limes in the kitchen, grab twelve of them, the juicer, and a big bowl."

"Yes ma'am!" The two resident idiots said with salutes before they rushed back into the kitchen. They came back a moment later and as Nami began juicing the limes, I pulled off my gloves, turning them inwards and temporarily pocketing them until I could properly clean them and packed up the iodine bottle I had used as I said "Scurvy's a dangerous thing to catch, but pretty easily treated. Soon as we get some Vitamin C in him, he should be fine with a little more bed rest."

"Amazing! Hey, Matt, you never said that you were a doctor!" Luffy said with stars in his eyes.

"I'm not." I said with a shrug before I winced as Nami slammed her fist into our captain's head and said "Scurvy is something every sailor should know how to avoid if they're going to sail on a ship you idiot!" She then glanced back at me and said "Though you did seem to know what you were doing when you treated that wound. I'm guessing First Aid was one of the survival things you learned with that Boy Scout group you mentioned before?"

I nodded and as Nami finished juicing the limes, raised Yosaku into a sitting position. Taking the bowl from her, I said "While we can certainly 'specialize' in things we learn, every Boy Scout is taught First Aid as soon as we join, that way we can help not only ourselves, but others if we come across anyone wounded. At least until the professionals can get to us and/or them at least."

"Sounds like a good protocol to have." Nami said with approval.

I nodded again as I finished helping the still out of it Yosaku drink the juice and then laid him back down as I said "Alright, give him a few hours and he should regain consciousness on his own. Give him another couple of days and some more juice at meal times he'll be back to full health."

"Thank you very much!" Johnny said with a deep bow, tears visibly coming down from behind his sunglasses. I gave him a nod of acknowledgement and Johnny turned to Luffy and gave another bow as he said "My apologies for attacking your ship Captain. Permission for me and Yosaku to stay with you guys until he is better?"

Luffy grinned and said "Your friends with Zoro right? Stay as long as you want!"

Johnny gave a tearful smile as he gave yet another bow, this one in gratitude as he said "Thank you very much!"

Time Skip: That Night

We put Yosaku onto a bed of quilts I made for him in the kitchen. Like I predicted, he woke up a few hours in and I had him drink two cups of juice along with the little bit of food he could stomach before he fell back into a much more peaceful sleep. As the rest of us sat around the kitchen table, Nami writing in the log book, she said "Let this be a lesson for the rest of us."

"Yeah, these kinds of things can happen on a long trip." Zoro said in agreement.

"Especially since we don't have much room for food on this ship." Ussopp said in agreement.

"At least we won't have to worry about fresh water with the solar still I brought." I said with a grin, taking a drink of said distilled water from my duct tape cup.

"Still, we should get somebody who'd know about the dietary business." Nami said.

"Dietary eh?" Luffy asked as he bit into a bit of bread. A moment later, he stood up and said "I know! We need a sea cook, let's go look for one!"

"I get it! Then, we'd have all sorts of delicious food to eat!" Ussopp said, standing up as well as he got excited like Luffy.

"EX-ACT-LY!" Luffy said, sticking out his tongue.

From where he was leaning against the stove with fist against face in a classic 'cool guy' pose, Johnny smiled and said "If you're looking for such a cook, I know where you could go." He then cocked his head and walked to stand in front of a sitting against the wall Zoro as he said "But, it's pretty close to the Grand Line, and the man that Big Bro Zoro's been hunting for, Hawk-Eye is around there too."

My eyes furrowed as I wondered if Johnny was talking about the _warlord_ Hawk-Eye, but kept my reservations as I saw the feral grin Zoro sported. At Luffy's eager nod, Johnny pointed and said "Then our heading is clear, we must head South-South West!* To the Floating Restaurant…the Baratie!"

"Well, if we were going to find a proper cook of the seas anywhere, it would be there." I said with a grin. An image of a ship in the shape of a giant fish popped up in my mind, my world knowledge providing the basic information of the restaurant as Johnny stated where our next destination would be. Seeing everyone looking at me, I continued "After all, it was built by 'Red Leg' Zeff, who was not only the captain of his crew, but also it's _chef_. If anyone can train a group of cooks to handle the open seas, it'll be the man who spent a year in the Grand Line and came out no worse for wear."**

"AMAZING!" Luffy and Ussopp said with wide shining eyes.

"It seems we have our heading then." Nami said with a smile as she stood to make the needed corrections to our course.

"Yeah, to the Baratie!" Luffy shouted eagerly.

Time Skip: The Next Day

Even knowing what she looked like, the Baratie was impressive in person. Luffy of course was drooling in anticipation of good food, though considering he had asked if we could grill the giant fish upon sight he might have also been fantasizing eating a giant fish. Still, as amazing as the restaurant looked, there was something else catching my attention. Hearing a second ship pulling up alongside ours, I glanced back and called out "Marine Vessel off our Starboard Stern."

"EH?!" The others asked, spinning around to look, Johnny immediately dashing into the kitchen where Yosaku was just waking up again, pushing him back in so that the two would be out of sight.

As the Marine vessel pulled up along side us, I took in how while it was longer than us by about fifteen feet, it had the same amount of decks above water and said "Relax guys, I doubt there's anyone important on a ship that small."

"What was that?!" A pink haired man in a black lined white suit, screws on the first knuckles of his hands shouted, slamming one of said hands down on the railing. Leaning in with a sneer, he said "I'm the Marine Lieutenant, Iron Fist, Fullbody!"

"Like I said, no one important." I said with a scoff. Now, if there had been a _captain_ on board, we would have had trouble.

Fullbody grit his teeth with a growl before he seemed to gather himself and said "Hey, who's your captain? Show yourself!"

Luffy strode up and said "I am Monkey D. Luffy." I saw Ussopp take a step up as well before I connected with his overalls and yanked him back, a strip of duct tape slapping itself on his mouth as he staggered back to stand next to me.

Ripping the tape off his mouth with a small yelp, Ussopp glared at me and said "What was that for?!"

"This is no time for bluster." I hissed out of the side of my mouth. Ussopp opened his mouth to say something, but the strip of tape floating back up in front of his mouth had him close it again and he held his hands up in surrender.

Luffy glanced back at us for a moment before he turned back around and said "Our Pirate Mark was made a few days ago!"

Fullbody scoffed and said "So I'm dealing with a bunch of amateurs, what a pain." His eyes then darted to the left where Johnny and Yosaku were hiding behind the Kitchen door watching and said "Though I do believe that I have seen those two before. You two claim to be pirate hunters don't you? Well to me it looks like you're the ones who have been captured, pathetic."

"Hey, don't mock us!" Yosaku yelled as they stepped away from the door and Johnny nodded as he reached into his jacket then threw a bunch of bounty posters to the side and said "We've captured plenty of pirates!" The posters drifted down to the ground, and sure enough several of them had Xs drawn on them, though it was noticeable that they were all in the thousands range, not a single one over ninety thousand. Nami stiffened as she saw one particular unmarked bounty, the Navigator crouching down to pick it up.

"Hmph, whatever." Fullbody said dismissively before his apparent date, a blonde in a red dress, stepped up to his side and said "Dear, stop wasting your time with these people, let's go."

"Of course my dear." Fullbody said, walking away causing the two bounty hunters to grumble at being ignored. My eyes narrowed when I saw Fullbody make a thumb's down at a pair of Marines like he was an emperor preceding over the gladiatorial arena and I said "Head's up people, it looks like they're gonna try and sink us."

"What?!" Ussopp asked in alarm. Before pointing as one of the cannons on the ship rolled out of its gun port and said "Matt's right, they're about to shoot at us!"

"I've got it!" Luffy said, legs wrapping around the railing and arms stretching out so that way he could grab our mast with one hand and Merry's figurehead with the other. The cannonball fired and hit him in the torso sending him flying back and he called out "Gum Gum Slingshot!" But just as he reached the extent of his stretching, Merry's figurehead splintered under his grip making him swing to stern. My eyes widened as he shot back forward releasing the cannonball which slammed into the upper level of the Baratie. As Luffy slammed into Merry's neck, I face palmed and muttered to myself "Damn it, of course we would have to do the 'damage a food establishment and thus have to serv as waiters' cliché, this wouldn't be an anime if we didn't."

Ussopp apparently felt the same way as he clapped a hand on Luffy's shoulder and said "Well, _Captain_ , it looks like you get to explain to the restaurant people why you blew a hole in their roof."

"Ah, why me?!" Luffy asked in alarm.

"Because you're the idiot who launched the cannonball at them." Zoro said uncaringly and Luffy began to whine.

Sighing, I said "I've got experience with building houses since my dad was a Contractor, I'll see if they'll accept my help in repairing the wall in negating the repair bill. Come on Luffy." With that said, I put an arm around Luffy and shot a grappling line of cloth to the damaged part of the restaurant and yanked us up there, the poor monkey blubbering a plea not to go the whole way up.

Once we reached the damaged section, we saw three chefs fretting over the head chef, identifiable by the large hat sitting on his bedside table and I said "Excuse me, who do I talk to about explaining what just happened?" (It was only polite to ask)

"That would be me!" The man on the bed said, gesturing for the others to move aside. I winced at the blood stain over his eye though that didn't prevent me from also noticing his peg leg as he stood up and said "I am Head Chef Zeff, care to tell me why you thought it was a good idea to blow a hole in my restaurant?!"

Luffy opened his mouth, but even having only spent a few days with him, I knew he was an idiot so I slapped my hand over his mouth and said "We were fired upon by the Marines by order of one Marine Lieutenant 'Iron Fist' Fullbody. My captain here has a paramecia devil fruit that turned him into rubber and tried to slingshot it back at their vessel but accidentally wound up pointed towards this one instead when he released the Cannonball. May I suggest you bill the Marines for the cost of repairs while I do the actual repairing. I _do_ have experience in housebuilding, worked for roughly ten years with a framing crew."

Zeff stared first at me, then Luffy with narrowed eyes before he glanced at the hole we were looking into the room through. Finally, he snorted and said "Your idea has merit. However, that doesn't cover the medical side of things. You." He pointed at Luffy who gulped and said "In order to pay for my medical expenses, you shall work for me for one month without pay."

Luffy gulped, sweat pouring down his face, but a glance at me had him nodding and I removed my hand from his mouth as he said "Alright."

"Then it's settled." Zeff said as he stood up. Glancing at me, he said "We have the number of a nearby lumber yard, but it will take a short while to reach us here. However, I expect you to be working on the hole no later than seven o'clock tomorrow morning."

"Of course sir." I said with a respectful nod even as I stepped through said hole, pulling Luffy with me, then used my own devil fruit to quickly make a tarp out of duct tape and secure it to the hole. Zeff raised an eyebrow and let out a soft hum at the sight before a _dangerous_ look appeared in his eyes and I was rather quickly reminded that peg leg or no, this man had taken on the Grand Line for a full year as he stomped out of the room and said "Good, then follow me, I have a Marine to _talk_ with."

We followed him out of the room, the three chefs staring in awe at the tarp until Zeff barked a command at them, and followed him downstairs. When we reached the ground floor, Zeff's eyes narrowed on the pink haired man with metal on his hands pushing his date's chair closer to the table and pointing said "Is that the man who ordered your ship to be fired upon?"

"It is." I said and Zeff let out a grunt before he strode through the tables and clapped his hand on Fullbody's shoulder. By the way Fullbody stiffened and his other hand snapped up to begin trying to immediately pry said hand off, Zeff had a rather strong grip on it. Zeff leaned forward and said something to Fullbody that had him pale so much, even Luffy and I could see it from where we were still by the stairs. Zeff said something to his date before he literally dragged Fullbody back to the stairs, snagging a blonde man in a black suit as he did so.

When Zeff returned to the stairs, he gestured at his fellow blond and said "This is Sanji, our Sous Chef, and for the next month, you do as he says, bus boy. Carpenter, I will see you in the morning."

"Yes sir." I said, watching as Zeff literally dragged the whimpering Marine Officer up the stairs before I turned to Sanji and held out my hand and said "Hi there, name's Matt, I'll be repairing your wall tomorrow. This is Luffy, who will be working off your boss' medical bills."

Sanji accepted the hand shake and said "Like the shitty Head Chef said, my name's Sanji." Dropping my hand, he turned his gaze onto Luffy and pointed his thumb over his shoulder as he said "Come on, there's a spare apron in the kitchen we can get you while I tell you what you will be doing here." The Sous Chef put his hand on Luffy's shoulder and lead the rubber man away, Luffy letting out a slight whine as he was led away.

I shook my head at the sight before I saw the rest of the crew enter the restaurant and went to tell them about our not so planned vacation. Even if Manga logic said that something would come up in the near future to interrupt said vacation.

END

Author's Notes: Poll and Update Schedule on Profile

Well, a much better deal than Luffy staying at the Baratie for a year has been reached, and Fullbody got what's coming to him. Although the question of whether he'd rather deal with Sanji over Zeff should be pondered. Next chapter we get introduced to Gin, so look forward to that.

*I KNOW that he actually says North-North East, but considering that the Reverse Mountain is in the SOUTH part of the East Blue, that makes no damn Geographical Sense, and as Tekking101 is fond of saying, _Geography is everything_!

**Remember that the Orbit was an East Blue ship, NOT a Grand Line one.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Story Start: The Baratie

Sanji quickly returned after getting Luffy an apron. It seemed that even though he was the Sous Chef, he was pulling double duty as a waiter as well. Not that he seemed to have a problem with that job. He came out of the kitchen completely loaded to bare, dishes lining both arms and one leg, _somehow_ moving around in a way that nothing fell off the plates, not even the soups in their bowls, even when he _hopped down the stairs one legged_.

I shook that little mystery off as 'Anime logic, ignore' and took a glance through the menu. I had just decided on trying the bacon and cheddar brisket ( _bacon_ , mmm) when Sanji came to our table, notepad and pencil at the ready. He gave Nami a deep theatrical bow and said "My fair lady, I thank you for gracing us with your angelic presence. Please, tell this lowly chef what it is you so desire and I will endeavor to make it the most memorable meal you have eaten!"

As Nami gave a pretty blush that I was pretty sure was half for show, half genuine, I glanced upwards towards the ceiling and thought to myself 'Oh boy, we've got a Casanova here, I just hope he's not the kind to be antagonistic to the same gender as himself.'

"And what shall you bastards lucky enough to travel with this beautiful swan have?" Sanji asked after taking Nami's order.

'Called it.' I thought in amusement as the others gave their orders. When it came to me, I gave my order but also said "Hey Sous Chef, do you think you guys could make us a pitcher of a custom drink? I'm not entirely sure if you guys would know it but it's a pretty simple recipe."

"Hm?" Sanji hummed in curiosity before nodding and said "If you know the recipe then we can make it, easy."

Nodding, I put my hand in my jacket to where I kept spare bits of cloth and as I took out a sheet, the color of the threads changed so that way it had writing on it. Handing the cloth to Sanji who raised an eyebrow at the material, I said "Here, you can keep that for your recipe book if you don't already have it."

"Thank you kindly, sir." Sanji said, surprisingly sounding genuine at being thankful for the recipe. Looking over it, he mused to himself "Applewood Julep eh, that's a South Blue drink I believe, yeah, we can make this for you no problem." And with that, Sanji quickly moved back into the kitchen.

"What's Applewood Julep?" Usopp asked with a cocked head.

Leaning back a little in my chair, I said "It's a mix of a quart of unsweetened apple juice, a cup of unsweetened pineapple juice, a cup of orange juice, a quarter cup of lemon juice, all chilled, and a little bit of fresh mint sprigs. I figured I wouldn't be able to have it for a while given I'll be on a ship for long periods of time so I thought we could have it here."

"Hm, the mint at least would be rather hard to keep around without a dedicated garden on board." Nami said, nodding her head in agreement.

"It does sound interesting." Usopp said.

"Whatever, it ain't Sake so I don't care." Zorro said with a snort.

" _Heathen_." I hissed under my breath, only half joking. Zoro cocked his eyebrow at me but before he could say anything, Sanji was back, carrying a pitcher that had condensation on it denoting its chilled nature and several glasses, enough regular sized ones filled with water for us and a small stack of us shot glasses as well. Setting the pitcher down in the center of our table and beginning to hand out the water, Nami first obviously, Sanji smiled and said "Here you are my lady and her hanger-ons, one pitcher of Applewood Julep."

"Oi, hanger-ons?" Usopp said lowly with an unimpressed look.

Me, I choose to ignore that little bit of gender specific trolling and instead poured myself a shot of the julep. Giving it a sip, I closed my eyes for a moment before I nodded and gave a thumb's up to Sanji as I said "Yep, that's Applewood Julep alright, I'm impressed you guys mixed it up so quickly. It usually takes me ten minutes to get everything measured out then mixed."

"You must not mix drinks often then sir, for something as simple as this, it is no trouble at all." Sanji said, pleased with my approval.

I snorted and said "You got that right. Usually my 'mixing' is limited to chocolate and strawberry syrup in my milk."

Sanji allowed a snort to pass through his nose as well as he said "Plebian. I suppose given how you shall be here for a while I shall have to show you how to _properly_ mix chocolate and strawberries into your milk. But for now, please enjoy the Julep while we work on your orders. They shall be out shortly." And with that, he gave an elaborate bow to Nami before zipping back into the kitchen.

Chuckling as he rose out of sight up the stair case, I looked at the rest of the currently captain less crew and knocked back my shot glass and said "I like him."

"You like him." Usopp repeated flatly.

I shrugged and as I refilled the shot glass said "Anyone willing to properly interact with the customers rather than just take orders and bring out food can't be too bad at their job."

"Eh, fair enough I guess." Usopp said with a shrug as he moved to pour his own shot before he stiffened and said "Head's up, that Marine guy is coming back down."

We all watched as the Lieutenant walked down the stairs. His cocky attitude was quite diminished, the pink haired marine looking like he had the wind taken out of his sails quite efficiently. He slowly made his way back to the table his date was sitting at and less sat down and more fell down into his seat. His date asked him a question, concern plain on her face and he answered her before he began spooning his soup.

A few minutes later, Sanji and Luffy came down the stairs again, Sanji placing our appetizers on the table in front of us while Luffy carried a large tub towards the tables where customers were finished eating. He _looked_ like he wanted to head to the tables where there was still food on the plates, but when Sanji glanced towards him, he stiffened with a full bodied shiver before he went back to collecting empty plates, whistling as he resolutely kept his gaze away from the cook.

Raising an eyebrow at the sight, I said "Geeze, what'd you do to him? When I joined this crew a few days ago I had to fight him off at meal times."

Sanji smirked and said "I merely told him I knew a few recipes for monkey meat that I'd like to try out if he wanted to volunteer."

That got Usopp and Zoro snickering and Nami giggled into her hand. I smirked and said "Mou, that was rather mean of you Mr. Chef."

"Perhaps, but if it keeps him from misbehaving then I will use it." Sanji said with a smirk.

There was the sound of mismatched footsteps on the stairs and we glanced over to see Zeff coming down the stairs. His eyes roamed over his kingdom as he made sure nothing was disrupting the customers. Fullbody stiffened fearfully as Zeff eyed him for a moment and the Head Chef smirked viciously for a moment before scanning the rest of the restaurant. I eyeballed yet another chef coming out of the hall that had a restroom sign on it, this guy looking like a top heavy Cuban with pop eye arms and thin legs. The man was drying his hands on his apron before everyone's attention was brought to the restaurant entrance as the double doors slammed open.

In the door way was a panicking Marine who shouted "L-Lieutenant! Lieutenant Fullbody! We've got a problem! The Pirate Krieg's man has escaped!"

"What?!" Fullbody asked in a panic.

"We've already lost seven of our men sir." The scared Marine said.

"That's ridiculous! When we got him three days ago, he was about to starve to death! And we haven't fed him yet, have we?" Fullbody said, stunned at how apparently an on death's door pirate could escape his brig.

As the customers began getting scared as well talking about how Krieg was the strongest of the East Blue, I noticed both Sanji and Zeff's eyes hardening when they heard that Fullbody had been starving the prisoner. Before I could figure out if that was just their pride as chefs talking or something else, a gunshot rang out and everyone's attention snapped back to the entrance.

The marine was lying on the floor, clutching at his bleeding right shoulder. And behind him, walking on slightly unsteady legs, was a man looking like death warmed over. The pirate made his way to an empty table and sat down, putting one of his feet on the table as he said "I don't care what it is, but bring me some food."

The Pop Eye look alike waiter came up to the table with hands clasped and said "But of course, you crook. But ah, do you have any money to pay for your meal?"

The gun the pirate was holding clicked as it appeared in the waiter's face. (And HOW that works is a question of anime physics I will never understand.) Giving the waiter a dead eyed look, the pirate said "Do you accept bullets?"

The chef's face fell flat and he said "That would be a no to having money then." The next instant, the chef slammed a fist down into the pirate's gut, sending him crashing through the chair and into the floor.

"Oi Patty, don't go breaking my chairs you bastard!" Zeff barked out.

"Wow, what power!" Usopp said in surprise.

"Meh, I could do better." Me and Zoro said simultaneously, the two of us eyeing each other with smirks when we realized we had spoken at the same time.

Usopp's expression went flat and he said "Zoro, you're not human, and Matt, using your Devil Fruit abilities would be cheating."

"And your point is?" Zoro asked causing Usopp to grumble to himself.

Meanwhile, the now named Patty was beating the Krieg Pirate to cheers of the customers and other chefs who had taken positions on the stairwell railing. A loud growling sound interrupted the beating and Patty grinned as he said "Oh ho, your stomach's growling quite loudly there, you filthy pirate."

"Shut up, it's just gas." The pirate bit out.

Patty snorted and kicked the pirate a few times to more cheers before he gave the customers a curtsey before dragging the pirate out. I noticed that Fullbody was quickly escorting his date out of the doors just in front of him. Clearly, he wanted nothing to do with this restaurant. I glanced back at the rest of the captain less crew and said "Yeesh, the guy could have at least given him a loaf of bread then sent him on his way rather than just beat him up like that."

The other three made noises of agreement and Sanji gave a short bow as he said "If you will excuse me, I believe that I shall go check on the progress of your food."

He turned to leave and joined Luffy at the stairs, the rubber man's arms full of dirty dishes. Zeff followed the pair after a moment and I smirked as I said "Check on our food's progress, right."

"Matt?" Usopp asked with a confused tilt of his head.

Chuckling a little, I said "I'm genre savy enough to guess that he's going to make that guy a quick but proper meal. Two hundred Beri says that guy winds up our chef."

Nami grinned and said "I'll take that action!"

Still chuckling, I poured myself another cup of Julep and took a sip as I went back to waiting for the rest of our food to arrive, plans of what I could do with us staying around in one place for supposedly a month running through my head as I did so.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule and Poll on my Profile, _please_ look at it before asking me when a story is going to be updated.

Sorry for the wait on this one folks, I was playing catchup with chapters three and four for High Wind's version of this story along with work having me come in a couple of days more than usual due to the other Maintenance worker calling out. On the subject of work, my Neighborhood Market is going from 24 hours to two shifts so we'll see how me moving to working from early morning to early afternoon affects my writing ability.

As for this chapter itself, sorry to say that for us non Luffy Straw Hats, we don't actually get to see the conversation between Sanji, Gin, and Luffy. But don't worry, there will be plenty of action next chapter to make up for that.

One last thing, I commissioned a cover art for Zaboomafoo and the artist is going to _try_ and have it done by the first of May. I'm going to give them that long to finish the picture before I start posting the story.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Story Start: Baratie

After our rather fabulous tasting lunch, while the others headed back to the Going Merry I asked the Popeye wannabe waiter Patty if it was possible to talk with Zeff again. The waiter had eyed me suspiciously for a few moments before he had shrugged and led me back up the stairs to the kitchen.

When we got there Zeff was chopping a large variety of vegetables at a speed that left his hand a blur, easily sending the chopped plants into their necessary areas with a careless flick of the knife that he slid under them. Not looking up from his work, he asked "What is it Carpenter, can't you see we're busy?"

"I wanted to ask for permission to use my Devil Fruit to create a large cloth construct near the Baratie. Since our Captain will be here for a month working under you I figured it would be better for our crew to have a large area to train on that ISN'T a floating restaurant filled with customers." I said, ignoring the fact that Manga/Anime logic made it very unlikely that we would be staying that entire month, especially with a Krieg pirate of all people having shown up then left the area. (Luffy had told us about how he had seen Sanji feed Gin then send him on his way)

Zeff grunted and said "Do as you want, but keep this 'construct' of yours at least a hundred feet away from the restaurant. We have fins underneath the ship that come upwards and I'd rather not damage them if we raised them for any reason."

"Thank you, Head Chef." I said with a quick bow of thanks.

"Whatever, now get out of my kitchen brat." Zeff said gruffly, still chopping vegetables without once looking at me.

As Patty and I left the kitchen, the chef with multiple plates to bring downstairs, I snorted and said "Your boss really does have giving the people the warm and fuzzies down to an art form doesn't he?"

Patty snorted as well at my sarcasm and said "You get used to him fairly quickly." Patty then turned serious and said "Besides, for us chefs who were thrown out everywhere else, the Baratie is our home, it doesn't matter how abrasive the Boss' personality is, we will be forever grateful for him accepting us here."

"I hear ya." I said with a nod then separated from him at the base of the stairs. Heading outside, I walked around the deck until I reached a spot that didn't have any nearby water craft. Once there, I attached a six foot wide strip of duck tape to the deck, starting from the wall to the edge, along with two pillars of the sticky stuff on either side. Then, feeling like Magneto walking across the chasm in the first X Men movie, I purposefully strode off the deck, the large strip of duck tape extending in front of me as I walked, instantly becoming two feet thick underneath and angled five degrees so that every twelve feet I took I went up a foot. Three hundred feet out from the Baratie's deck I was twenty five feet above the waves and SOOO breaking the ADA's wheelchair ramp rule of no stretches of more than thirty feet without a rest or turn in the platform. But hey, what did I care, Pirate, remember?

Once I was both sufficiently far enough from the ship and high enough over the waves, my ramp turned into a ten foot wide pillar that sunk down to and then beneath the waves until I felt the pointed tip hit the ocean floor then made it grow three feet deeper. Once the pillar was secured, I made a couple of duck tape posts on either side of the ramp then connected two tape ropes to them, sending the rope down the large ramp to connect with the other two pillars, the space between the railings and the bridge floor filling in with two layers of tape. That should keep us from falling off if the waves got too bad.

With the way over made, I made twelve miniature pillars and tossed them in a circle formation around the first pillar, growing them into a proper size once they were each fifty feet from the central pillar, and reaching thirty feet over head, making them fifty five feet above the waves. A web of tape that was loose enough to have the bottom five feet below the top of the pillars was made next, with a circular hole in the middle. I made a curving ramp of tape up to that hole, secured to tightly rolled cloth with tape lining pillars along with thin but equally tightly rolled logs of cloth attached to the ramp in one foot intervals and thin railings to aid in traversing the ramp. Once up top of the ramp, I filled in the bowl with a solid foot of tape before I made another floor, this one level with the pillar tops. The floor had gaps along the rim allowing for people to easily get up from the sloped floor, though I put in a trap door like flap over the ramp entrance so that way the projectiles Usopp would be no doubt firing would not drop down to the first pillar and likely into the sea. I also made sure that there were plenty of support pillars between the two floors.

To further prevent that from happening, a wall of net shaped cloth surrounded the arena like the netting you would see around some trampolines, attached to pillars that were thinner than the support ones but no less durable, made that way to allow us a better view of our surroundings while we trained. The netting reached an additional hundred feet high, before coming together over the top in a solid mass that would keep us from getting TOO wet if a storm came along.

The shell of our training area complete, I started working on the innards. Even more pillars were erected over the main floor, connected by more bridges and ramps making a large but compact multilevel complex. There were even a few hanging platforms hanging over solid air without a pillar holding them up, relying instead on the 'cables' attached to other surfaces to stay in place, and ropes of duck tape were also scattered all over the structure. When I was done the area looked like what one of the good paintball or laser tag arenas should be in all honesty and I nodded in satisfaction when I was done.

Going down to the entrance pillar, I was unsurprised to see the rest of the crew sans Luffy looking at what I did with various levels of appreciation. Johnny and Yosaku were also there, the two of them as excited as Usopp was. They weren't the only ones looking at the training area of course, several of the restaurant customers had also come out to get a better look of what I had made then they could through the restaurant windows.

Reaching the deck of the Baratie, I grinned as I asked "So what do you guys think? Think that'll serve for a good training area while we're here?"

Zoro nodded and said "This should be acceptable."

"Acceptable?! This thing is AWESOME!" Usopp said, shouting the last part with both hands raised to the sky. Continuing eagerly, he said "I can shoot as much as I want without having to worry about losing it all to the ocean, and all of those different areas at variable heights gives me so many options to work with, this is _**GREAT**_!"

"Well, I guess if we're going to be here for a month then this was a good idea. It's just a shame we won't be able to take it with us when we leave." Nami said with a slight shrug.

"Actually, now that everything is made, I can shrink it down to pocket size of even smaller if I want." I said.

"REALLY?!" Usopp asked excited.

"That's handy." Zoro said with an appreciative grin.

"Yeah, handy." Nami echoed before she shook her head and said "Well, you guys have fun, I'm heading back to the ship."

"What? After all the work Matt put into this you're not even going to try it out?!" Usopp asked indignantly.

"I have things to do." Nami said with a wave of her hand as she walked away only to yelp when she was suddenly lifted up into the air by my threads attached to her clothes.

"Nope." I said walking up the ramp again.

"MATT, PUT ME DOWN!" Nami yelled as she struggled ineffectively in the air.

"Nope." I repeated with a grin and continued "According to the others you've always done your best to stay OUT of fights, which tells me you need the training even more than we do."

As Nami continued trying to get free, I heard Usopp laugh nervously and said "Nothing to see here folks, just helping one of our crewmates out."

As I reached the entrance pillar I saw that Johnny and Yosaku were following after Zoro as he purposefully strode across the ramp, Usopp taking up the rear with an eagerness that for some reason I hadn't expected from him. Then again, the training area was practically a sniper's paradise of variable heights and angles he could take full advantage of so long as he was fast enough to keep away from the others' close range abilities. Shrugging, I made my way up the entrance ramp and set Nami near one of the holes by the rim while keeping the trap door open.

Nami crossed her arms when she was set down and glowered at me as she said "You suck, you know that?"

"Yeah? Well what if you got in a fight that you couldn't run with none of us to help you? Would you rather be a helpless damsel or able to at least hold your own?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

Nami hmmphed to herself before she climbed up into the training tower proper ahead of us. A few minutes later the rest of us had joined her and Usopp asked "So how are we doing this, team battle or free for all?"

"There's six people, so I suggest two teams of three at first then a free for all after that." I said.

Zoro nodded and said "How should the teams be divided?"

"We could leave it up to chance, roll a dice. If it lands on one to three that person is on one team, four to six they're on the other, roll until one team is filled." I offered.

The others thought about it for a minute before they nodded, some more confidently then the others. With a nod, I said "Everyone form a circle, I'll roll for me first then go clockwise."

Once everyone was in place, I opened the app on my phone, selected one dice, and hit the roll button.

Me: 6

Zoro: 3

Johnny: 3

Yosaku: 5

Nami: 4

"And that leaves Usopp on Zoro and Johnny's team." I said.

"Whew, I get the monster on my side, what a relief!" Usopp said with a smile.

"Aw man, this is going to SUCK!" Nami said morosely.

"Well, I guess this is good practice for if Yosaku and I get split up during a fight." Johnny said slightly disappointed.

"Alright, we have our teams, let's set some ground rules. We start twenty feet away from each other, no purposeful maiming, no attempting to leave the arena, anything else goes, _and_ , just to make things interesting, if a team steals one of these, _without damaging it_ , they automatically win the match." I said, forming a pair of bandannas, one green and one red. I tied the red bandanna around my neck and handed the other one to Zoro, who would OBVIOUSLY be that team's leader, who eyed it for a moment before shrugging and tied it to his right wrist.

"Capture the flag, sounds fun." Usopp said with an eager grin.

"Only because you have Zoro as your flag bearer." Nami grumbled.

"Ten minute time limit sound good to you?" I asked Zoro. At his nod, I set the timer on my phone and we separated to form opposing lines twenty feet apart. Once we were ready, I made a duck tape pillar to set the phone in it and said "Alright, match start in three, two, one."

As soon as I pushed the start button, my entire demeanor changed, an evil grin appearing over my face. Its appearance startled all but Zoro who merely raised an eye brow as he drew two of his blades. I took that moment of drawing his blades to connect my threads to his clothes, his shirt's short sleeves quickly growing down to his wrist.

"Eh?" Zoro asked, looking down at his arms in confusion before he suddenly grunted as his arms snapped into a crossed position in front of his chest. My grin grew as I cackled and said "Mwahaha, Dance to the whims of my strings puppet boy!"

Twitching my fingers made Zoro's legs start doing the Kazotsky Kick and he growled out "What the hell Matt?!"

"Would you rather I stuck you to the roof to keep you from fighting?" I asked with a snicker.

Snickering himself now, Usopp said "He's got you there Zoro." He then quelled at the glare Zoro sent him.

Johnny though had a much more indignant reaction, running towards me as he said "How dare you make fun of Zoro bro like that?!"

He was intercepted by Yosaku who at his partner's incredulous look shrugged and said "Sorry, Johnny, but Matt kind of has a point. After all, he said anything goes."

"YOU TRAITOR!" Johnny yelled as the pair started fighting each other.

Zoro rolled his eyes before he said "Usopp, are you just going to stand there or are you going to stop him?"

"Oh right, sorry!" Usopp said, quickly pulling back on his sling shot and aiming at me only to yelp as Nami ran at him and said "I don't think so!" Usopp hastily back stepped away from Nami as she said "I may think that Matt is being a complete idiot, but he IS keeping Zoro busy, and I _like_ not having to deal with him!"

As Nami pushed Usopp away from the STILL kicking Zoro, a vein began pulsing on his forehead before he let out a roar and managed to force his arms apart, slicing the threads that held him hostage. Snarling at me, he pulled Wado Ichimonji out and slid it into his mouth as he said "I _was_ going to go easy on you Tac, but you just had to go and _piss me off_!"

Zoro launched himself across the twenty feet seperating us and slashed at me. Using Observation Haki, I was able to put an Armament Hakid strip of cloth in a position to catch all three blades and I grinned as I said "Well, if you're stepping things up then I guess I shouldn't play around either. Shame, I personally would have taken the embarrassment over the ass whooping."

Zoro scoffed as he continued pushing against the cloth strip and said "Please, you may have been able to handle a small crew of pirates on your own, but you said that was using preset traps, and there ain't nothing like that here."

"Oh, it's not me that's going to be doing the ass kicking, allow me to introduce you to the fine art of puppetry." I said, my grin turning from plain evil to malevolently wicked as the strip of cloth holding Zoro's swords began bulging outwards. Zoro was quick to disengage and stared warily as the cloth turned into a seven foot tall bipedal creature that had a balancing tail, long snake like neck with a beak for a mouth, tyrannosaurus like feet, three claw tipped fingers and a thumb on each hand, and most importantly blades. Easily reaching a foot long, these blades came out of its elbows, wrists, feet, legs, head, and end of its tail, and they were all Armament black.

"Zoro, say hello to the Hork-Bajir, an alien species from the Animorph series." I said with an eager grin even as I took five steps to the side to properly see and then made my cloth puppet take a combat ready stance. It was a little tricky keeping the cloth blades stiff while the rest of the body moved, but being able to outnumber Zoro in the 'sharp things to cut people with' department would make that bit of strain worth it. A moment later, my deadly creation leaped forward, lashing out with its arms in a flurry of swings that probably would have been a bit awkward if it had had actual bone and muscle under its cloth skin.

As Zoro gamely took on the Hork-Bajir head on, I noticed from the side Johnny and Yosaku staring in awe, their own clash forgotten with blades held limply at their sides. I was only able to get a glance though before I had to put my full focus on my fight with Zoro again. Greatly outnumbered in the blade department or not, Zoro was a Davey Jones damned **beast** to fight against. Even as I managed to get small nicks and scratches over his body he periodically cut large slices into the puppet. I didn't even bother trying to repair those 'wounds' after the first time, it took needed focus off the fight and he just wound up making a just as bad cut an _inch_ above the first one. Thankfully, I had ten digits to work with, and thus ten reinforced threads connected to the construct allowing it to retain its form even as it became rather easy to see through it.

The timer ringing knocked me out of the tunnel vision keeping Zoro occupied had put me into. Blinking away from the wisps of cloth connected to the cloth blades, I saw Johnny and Yosaku guiltily glance at their blades then each other. Nami and Usopp were up on one of the highest sections. It looked like our Sniper had understandably been playing keep away with our Navigator. I made them a cloth slide that had a few speed decreasing turns from their position down to the floor and once they were on the ground, I took away the slide and said "Alright, free for all's up next."

"Hang on, I need to collect my ammo!" Usopp said with waving arms.

"Consider this practice for long duration combat." I said with a snort. Flicking the timer settings to a new time then putting my phone back into its holding pillar, I said "That said, I'm upping the time to twenty minutes. Starting...Now!"

"Everyone get Matt!" Nami shouted, and everyone, including Zoro, called out their agreement as they started rushing me.

"Well that's not very sporting of you." I said as I quickly shot a cloth rope to the edge of the arena and pulled myself back to get some distance. Landing on my back and rolling to my feet ten feet from the wall, I rolled my neck cracking it before I grinned at the still charging fighters and called out in my best TF2 Engineer voice "COWBOY UP!"

The cloth of my jeans bulged outwards, rapidly pushing my legs apart and lifting me up off the ground as it formed a large stallion under me. At the same time, the cloth of my Carhartt jacket shot off a long thin strand, curling as it went to form a lasso. The others came to a sudden stop as I reared my ride, taking my duck tape Stetson hat off and swinging it around, I let out a loud "Yee Haw!" My horse quickly came back on all fours and I gave it a theatrical kick and a loud "Yaw!" before making it charge the other five. They instinctively ducked as my horse jumped over their heads, sending the lasso to catch Usopp as I did so, pinning his arms to his body just over the elbows.

Usopp's eyes widened and he whimpered out "Oh No." The next instant, my horse landed behind them, the lasso went taunt, and Usopp let out a loud scream as he was yanked off his feet and dragged on his back behind my horse as I made my way to the nearest ramp. As I went up the ramp, the lasso end turned into a cocoon, covering everything from the elbows down. Reaching the top of the ramp, my horse charged down the first connected bridge before going over the side. As I fell back to the ground, the trailing cloth connected to the bridge and Usopp was left hanging, his body swinging as he struggled to get free.

If I had been on a real horse then landing after falling for fifteen feet would have been rough. Thankfully, I was using a cloth construct so the landing was MUCH smoother. Chuckling as I had my construct begin to trot in a circle around the others, I said "Combat Tactics 101, if you can remove a long range fighter from the fight before they can get set up, do so."

"We're screwed." Johnny muttered, Yosaku nodding emphatically next to him.

"Yes, yes you are." I said with a grin, more cloth coming out of my jacket, tightly wrapping itself into a long rod that I held in my right hand. Instead of a spear point at the end, I decided to go the Green Arrow route and made a boxing glove shape instead.

Both Zoro and Nami's expressions went flat at the sight of the glove and Nami asked "Are you serious?"

"Yep." I said with a grin before I charged the group.

Scene Change: Half An Hour Later

Nami, Johnny, and Yosaku were lying on the deck of the Merry covered in bruises. Groaning, Nami asked "How can a guy who's only had his Devil Fruit for six months be so good at fighting with it?"

"He's creative with it, I'll give him that much." Zoro said as he performed maintenance of his swords, ignoring all of the minor scrapes and bruises he had acquired.

"I still can't believe he left me hanging in the air during that entire second fight." Usopp grumbled.

"Lucky you." Johnny and Yosaku groaned out.

I let a snort out at that while I was treating my own minor injuries, all of them caused by Zoro who was way above my level when it came to close combat, even with me on a horse construct for mobility and using a blunt spear for extended reach. Tying the last bandage around my right bicep, I stood up and slid my repaired coat on and said "Alright guys, I'm heading back to the arena to work on my mobility, I'll start you guys on Haki training after dinner."

"Mind if I join you?" Usopp asked, standing up.

I raised an eyebrow and asked "What, you want a round three?"

Usopp snorted and said "One on one against you? Hell no, but if you're willing to make targets around the training area I could work on shooting on the move."

"Fair enough." I said with a shrug as we began making our way off the Merry and back to the training area.

Time Skip: That Night

Once again, everyone was on the deck of the Merry, though this time Luffy was with us as well. They were sitting on a row of barrels while I stood in front them and said "Alright guys, I told you before that I would teach you about Haki. Haki is...well, the best words I can use to describe it are 'Applied Bullshit'. It let's you detect what a person attacking you will do, increase the impact of your own attacks while at the same time allowing you to hit the intangible, and for the rare few, exert your dominance over others, usually by knocking them out."

"Uh, what's dominance mean?" Luffy asked.

"Power and influence over others." I explained. At Luffy's quiet 'ah' I continued my explanation and said "Haki is split apart into three main categories: Observation, Armament, and Conqueror's. The first two anyone can learn but the third you have to be born with to use it." Nodding at Luffy, I said "I _think_ Luffy might have that last one, I certainly felt _something_ when I first met him with my Observation Haki and he made his claim to become the Pirate King, and it would make sense that someone with that kind of ambition would have it."

"Shishishi." Luffy laughed with a grin as the others glanced at him considering.

Gathering everyone's attention again, I said "I'll go over Conqueror's a little more with you at a later time Luffy, but for now I'll focus on the other two. Observation is first and its uses are many. You can use it to sense others if they are hidden from your other senses or too far away to detect normally, sense a person's emotional state, predict an opponent's moves shortly before they make them, and true masters can see up to a full minute into the future, though only in snippets for that. It's also possible for two Observation users to communicate semi telepathically thanks to the emotion sensing, kind of like how people who have worked together for a long time don't need to actually speak to have a conversation with each other."

"On the flip side of the Haki coin we have Armament Haki. As the name suggests, its primary purpose is to defend the user. There are two stages, the first forms an invisible shield around what's being protected while the second, stronger form turns the effected object black." I held up my right fist in demonstration and a moment later it was gleaming black. Dropping both the technique and my fist, I continued "Armament Haki is more than a shield though, it's also a weapon. For starters, Armament Haki negates Devil Fruit abilities if those abilities alters the user's body. For instance, say you're fighting a guy that can turn into, oh I don't know, let's go with gelatin. A normal hit wouldn't affect the guy because his body would just turn into gelatin when hit. However, use Armament in your strikes and it would be just like hitting a normal person. And it doesn't have to be a body part doing the striking either, if you're using a weapon like a sword you can imbue your Haki into it. Most higher class swordsmen do so as a matter of course in order to prevent chip damage or outright shattering of their blades in combat."

Zoro's hand drifted over his sword hilts at that and his gaze turned more intent. Nodding my head to Zoro, I said "In fact, there's something called a Black Sword/Blade. It's where a person has used Haki so often with their weapon that it has become permanently black. If you guys see someone with one of these swords before you hit the second half of the Grand Line my advice is to run like hell away from the user if they're not focused on you."

"A-and if they ARE focused on us?" Usopp asked, shakily raising his hand like a student in class.

I gave him a grim smile and said "Then you should promptly bend over and kiss your ass goodbye, though chances are that if you wait a moment you won't actually have to bend over to do so."

Usopp turned a pasty white and let out a terrified wheeze. Johnny and Yosaku both let out loud gulps while Nami had sweat start to form on their brow. Meanwhile Zoro was contemplative while Luffy simply gave a single nod to show that he understood.

"One last thing, actually make that two. First, an advanced user of Armament Haki can create a shield of the stuff a short distance away from the user's body without a medium. Second, there is another, much harder technique, where you can _push_ your Haki into another object and destroy it from the inside."

"COOL!" Usopp and Luffy shouted, stars in their eyes.

"That depends entirely on what you use that trick on. I've seen what a human body exploding looks like, and you're going to need more than a mop to clean THAT mess up." I said with a dark smirk.

Four out of the five people in front of me turned a decidedly unhealthy green at the mental image I just gave them and even Zoro looked slightly disturbed. Shaking his head to clear that image, the Santoryu user said "So what do we need to do to learn these techniques?"

"Well I'm going to get you started on Observation Haki first. The ability to detect an attack means that you have a greater chance to avoid it. After all, the saying's never block an attack if you can dodge it. That and I think I can give you guys a head start on learning Observation if you're willing to trust me a little."

"Why would we need to trust you?" Nami asked suddenly suspicious.

I let out a shrug and said "I couldn't really do this for myself because I'd have no way to end it but I think that if I put you all into a light hypnotic trance then I can make it easier for you guys to use Observation Haki the first time. After that it'd just be a matter of practice."

Nami crossed her arms with a frown and said "You don't actually expect me to allow you to hypnotize me do you? Who knows what you'd do with a beautiful girl like me under your control?"

I shrugged again and said "Then I guess you don't mind spending a few months sitting still meditating or trying to dodge someone attacking you with a blindfold on."

"Er, well..." Nami said, eyes shifting side to side before she sighed and said "Fine. BUT! I want you to record this so that way I know that nothing fishy happened!"

"Fine by me." I said with a shrug as I pulled out my phone and started recording before I put it on a cloth tripod. A minute later, a large piece of cloth shot out of my back and hovered over my head as I continued "Now then, if there aren't any other nay sayers, let's begin."

None of the others spoke up so a spiral of black and white formed on the cloth and began spinning as I said "Focus on the spiral and clear your minds. With every turn of the spiral, feel your thoughts move away, like passing you down a stream that you are standing on the bank of. As your mind clears, begin to allow your senses to fade, until the only thing you can hear is the sound of my voice. First is touch, allow the sensations of the wood you are sitting on and the wind around us to fade away...Next, allow the smell of the ocean and the ships that we are on and around to fade...Right on the heels of smell is taste, note the salt in the air then let it go...Fourth is sight, close your eyes, they are unimportant at this moment...Finally, we have hearing. Hear the waves surrounding you, the creak of the wood beneath us and the flapping of the sails above you, allow it all to fade away, hearing nothing but the sound of my voice..."

As I spoke, I watched how everyone reacted. A bit worryingly, Luffy went into a trance almost instantly. Zoro was surprisingly next, almost immediately after actually, though his seemed less spiral aided, more internally initiated, maybe he actually meditated during some of those naps of his? Johnny, Yosaku, and Usopp all allowed themselves to slip into the 'mellow' of a voluntary trance about a minute in. As expected, Nami was the last one to enter her trance, the girl seeming to have trouble to just let go. Still, once she was under, I had them release their grips on their senses one by one, giving them fifteen seconds between each one.

Once they could only hear my voice, I said "Observational Haki transcends the normal senses, and everyone experiences it just that little bit differently. For some, it is sight beyond sight, for others, hearing beyond hearing. Your five senses have been muted, casting a veil around you, but that does not mean that the world outside of it has ceased to exist. Push through the veil until you can once more detect things around you. When you do, make two thumbs up."

All of their brows furrowed to varying degrees as they did as told. Unsurprisingly given how good she was at detecting changes in weather patterns, Nami was the first to move her hands into the gesture, taking only thirty seconds to do so. Usopp was next, the Sniper's scrunched up face relaxing around fifty seconds in as he fisted his hands with raised thumbs. Zoro and Luffy were both within a minute of the Long Nose. Finally, Johnny and Yosaku made the gesture at around the three minute mark.

Nodding to myself, I said "Alright guys we've got the hardest part done, you've broken the barrier to Observe the world. When you wake up, I want you to remember the feeling you got when you did so. But for now, it's time to return your senses to you. First, allow the rest of your hearing to come into use again...Next, allow your eyes to work again, but make sure you take the time to let them focus properly...Third, allow yourself to taste the air around you again...followed by smelling the area...and finally, allow yourself to feel your surroundings again...Now that your senses have returned to you, I want you to once more try and use Observation Haki, give me a single thumb's up when you do so."

Nami and Usopp immediately gave a thumb's up, rapidly followed by Zoro and Luffy a few seconds in. It took Johnny and Yosaku about six seconds but they too soon had their thumbs up. Nodding, I said "Alright guys, remember to keep how you broke the barrier in mind, able to recall perfectly how you did so as you come out of your trance, which will happen when I snap my fingers in three, two, one." SNAP!

As one, the five all twitched back to awareness and began blinking their eyes a few times. Shaking his head, Usopp said "Man, that felt weird."

"You were aware during it?" I asked mildly curious.

"Vaguely." Usopp said, making a wiggling so-so motion with his hand.

I hummed then shrugged and said "Probably because I didn't specify whether to forget or remember the session I guess."

"I still want to see that recording." Nami said as she got off of her barrel and walked over.

"Yeah, yeah." I said with a wave of my right hand while my left grabbed my phone and stopped the recording. Handing the phone over, I said "Geeze, it's like you don't trust me."

"Don't take it personally, I don't think she actually trusts anyone." Usopp said.

Nami snorted and said "I do too trust people, just not you guys THAT much."

"Fair enough." Usopp said before he seemed to turn his focus inwards. A moment later, he let out a startled "WHOA!" and fell back off of his barrel.

"Usopp! Are you alright?! What happened?!" Luffy asked in concern.

"Ah, yeah, I'm fine. I just tried using Observation Haki on the surrounding area and was surprised by what I sensed." Usopp said as he quickly got up and ran to look over the Merry's railing.

Seeing his actions, I smirked and said "Picked up on the literal ocean's worth of microscopic life forms in the water underneath us didn't you?"

Usopp nodded strongly and said in an awed voice "I had no idea there was so many tiny things hanging around that we couldn't see!"

"Yeah, it can be a bit overwhelming at first I'll admit, but training will allow you to ignore all of those signals you're receiving in favor of all of the ones that matter on the human scale of things." I said with a nod. It really had been quite overwhelming that first time I got Haki working and was swarmed by thousands of soft voices that gathered together to make it seem like I was in a rock concert.

Nami frowned for a moment before she paused the recording and closed her eyes as she focused. A moment later, she gasped and said "Oh, that's beautiful!"

The others soon followed the two's examples and various exclamations were given, from Zoro's grunt of vague interest to Luffy's excited chattering with Johnny and Yosaku in the middle. Once they had gotten over their excitement, Zoro grunted again and asked "So now what?"

"Now?" I asked with an evil smirk that made the smarter members of the group a bit nervous as I continued "One of you comes with me back to the arena and we practice."

Time Skip: The Morning After Our Arrival To The Baratie 7:00

I stood in front of the tape tarp covering the hole to Zeff's room. Said head chef was lounging on a lounge chair on one side of the third story deck while on the other side was a bunch of lumber, nails, hammer, and a saw. Gesturing at the supplies, the Grand Line Veteran said "Alright Carpenter, let's see these Construction Skills you spoke of."

"Right." I said with a nod, putting my hand on the tarp and using my powers to shrink it into nonexistence. Studying the ragged edges of the hole, I said "Hm, need to take off the busted boards first, then replace the brace, oh wait, that's three supports there, that'll be tricky, going to have to pry up some of the floor boards as well to get to those. Shouldn't be too hard if I slip some cloth underneath and slowly make it thicker, would definitely be better than using a crow bar, then I can just tap them back in place with the hammer when I'm done. Everything after that's just cutting the side boards to the right shape and attaching them to the beams."

Turning my head to look at Zeff, I said "Give me an hour, hour and a half tops."

"Hmph, I'll believe it when I see it, and there better not be no tape holding anything up or sealing gaps when you're done. I don't care how impressive that play pen you made yesterday is, I want my wall to actually last longer than a week." Zeff said with crossed arms.

I snorted and said "Please, what do you take me for, a rank amateur?" Not bothering to wait for and answer, I formed a cloth tarp on the floor before I slipped a strand of cloth in between the top broken plank and the support brace it was still attached to, increasing the thickness of the cloth to begin prying the broken board free.

Time Skip: 8:15

I gave the last nail one last tap to make sure it was snug in the wood before I stepped back and said "There we go, just needs a bit of waterproof paint and it'll be good as new." Pulling out my phone to check the time, I smirked at Zeff and said "See, what I tell you? One hour fifteen minutes."

"Hmph, acceptable." Zeff said, eyeing the wall with a critical eye before he said "Follow me and I'll show you where the paint is."

"Righto!" I said, being deliberately chipper to counter his surliness. After all, the hard part was already done.

Time Skip: Three Days After Our Arrival To The Baratie

Fog hung thick in the air, not that me and my training partners could see it. Usopp, Zoro, and I all had blindfolds on as we had a training free for all on the 'ground' floor of the training area. In deference to our blindness Usopp was sticking to pachinko balls as ammunition, Zoro had his swords kept in their sheaths, and I was limiting myself to a tightly wrapped cloth bo staff. I had been fending off Zoro while we did our best to avoid Usopp's fire when the Sniper suddenly called out "Hang on guys, Time Out!"

Zoro and I paused in our weapon swinging to lift our blindfolds up and glanced at Usopp who had his head turned towards the other side of the Baratie, a frown on his lips.

"What is it Usopp?" I asked, a frown also on my lips.

"I'm picking up something large coming towards the restaurant, but the people on it feel _really_ weak, and not in the strength sense, more like on death's doorstep kind of weak." Usopp said. Taking his own blindfold off, he did his best to peer through the thick fog to actually see what he was sensing.

Zoro and I looked in the direction he was and we both focused our own Observation Haki in that area. After about a minute or two we also picked up what our Sniper was sensing and I said "Wow, you weren't kidding about the death's door bit."

Zoro hummed and said "Yeah, but one of those guys seems a bit more well off than the others. It's strange though, that one feels kind of familiar?"

I hummed and said "All in favor of ending training early to go see what's coming?"

"Aye/Sure." The two said and I quickly used my textilekinesis to roll Usopp's used ammo over to him for quicker retrieval before we headed for the exit underneath us. As we walked across the bridge I couldn't help but think that this was the event that magna/anime logic dictated would cut Luffy's servitude short.

END

Whoo, man, I knew that the Haki explanation combined with the fact that its three days would make this long but I didn't expect that much. And I totally added the repair job in last because I almost forgot about it, hence the lack of detail that I had PLANNED to put into it...whoops. Eh, I'll cover it in more detail in Zaboomafoo and/or High Winds. Until next time guys!


End file.
